Missing Ashes
It takes a year to get into the groove of things. I keep trying to remind myself that. My first year at college, I still found whole new buildings as late as May, and my first year teaching – well let’s just say every day was an adventure there. And for my entire first year at First United Church, every season brought new traditions and new special services for which I always had to ask, “What does ‘just like last year’ mean?”
So this year as Lent begins – and I barely even noticed – I have to keep in mind that it takes a year to get used to things.
Part of my trouble is just personal. Having not grown up in New Orleans or Barranquilla or Rio or other places in which huge parties happen right up to the start of Lent, it is a srange adjustment for me to go from wild celebrations to quiet penitence in a singe day. I am used to a more quiet approach to Lent, which makes the reflection necessary for Ash Wednesday an extension/deepening of a process rather than a reversal of it. In many ways I think life mirrors the reversal much more than it does the quiet deepening, so I think I have a lot to learn from this seismic shift; I just think I’ll probably learn it better next year.
The other challenge here, however, is that on Ash Wednesday there are no ashes – at least not for the Protestants. I am sure you could have them. There is no law against it or anything. But, very much like the United States in the 1950s, 60s, and even 70s, ashes on the forehead looks so very Catholic, so why confuse matters… Unlike in the United States, I think this confusion has less to do with social stigma and much more to do with the fact that Colombia is about 90% Roman Catholic according to the Department of State. In order to separate yourself from the crowd, as it were, you have to mark somedifferences - or not mark them, as the case may be - and one of those non-markings seems to be about ashes.
I get it. And I will say that in the Presbyterian Church here I have never heard people talk about “converting” the Catholics (as I did so often in Guatemala). But still and all, I miss the ashes. I miss the ritual itself, but I also miss the reminder that I am connected to all things, that life is short, that the wildnerness of Lent is tied to the cross and that journey is part of my journey in these forty days and always.
So I get it. I really do. And that smudge on my forehead? Oh, it must be from the newspaper ink. I’ll get it off when I get home.
Twitter
Facebook
Facebook - MB -
I was thinking this year, as I saw them give out the ashes at work, “I wonder if those who are “word alone” (the conservative anti-gay folks in the ELCA, or in other denominations “The bible says” folks who only want to do what the bible says (they hold tightly to some strange version of sola scriptura)), I wonder if they celebrate Ash Wednesday?” It isn’t in the bible, of course neither is Advent, Lent, Easter, or even really Christmas.
I personally like that protestant (Reformed) theology (at least originally) rejected liturgy. It does go against basic human nature that desires rituals, but I think it allows for the mystery of God to shine forth more and calls into question or basic fallen nature to make idols of things, even our concept of God (which those who hold so rigidly to the supreme supremacy of God or a book are also guilty of). In this sense we could fall into the same trap and find ourselves rejecting liturgy out of a constructed idol of God, but the theology should self-correct by allowing us to see our idolatrous tendencies.
I’m not sure where I’m going with this, other than I think those “the bible says” folks are pretty hypocritical, which really has nothing to do with your post on Ash Wednesday, but think that Ash Wednesday easily shows forth their contradiction.
I think I need to re-read Calvin.