Are You Looking At My Ash?

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign? -T.S. Elliot, Ash Wednesday, first stanza.

I love Ash Wednesday. The cruciform smudge across my forehead is a beautiful and meaningful way to mark the beginning of the Lenten season. This is traditionally called “the imposition of ashes,” but it never feels like much of an imposition to me. It is timely reminder of the season we are now in. The forty days (minus Sundays) before Easter, is the time we journey with Jesus as he makes his way to the cross.

I have participated in Ash Wednesday both as a participant, and as a pastor—the one smudging the cross on other people’s foreheads. When the priest or pastor imposes the ashes, they traditionally say words drawn from Genesis 3:19, “Remember you are and to dust you will return.” Those lines were first directed at Adam, as a consequence for his fall from grace in the Garden of Eden and they remind each of us that we are sinners, and that we are going to die.