What is going on? I wondered. It was a Wednesday in February, and I was stationed at my usual coffee shop in Midtown – close enough to campus to be convenient, but not close enough to be overrun with co-eds distracting my studies. I was wrestling through my translation homework, failing (again) to render Old Slavonic into Russian. This day, I was distracted by dirty foreheads. First one, then another patron entered with smudged foreheads…then a group arrived, talking amongst themselves. One of the smudges appeared almost to be in the shape of a cross. Overhearing some of their conversations, I was struck by the sense that something sacred was happening. I had no idea what it was. I was left out.
Years later, confirmed and married in the Anglican church across the street from the coffee shop, I knelt at the alter rail on a Wednesday in February. I held my firstborn son. He was a heavy four-month-old with full cheeks and a goofy grin, mostly bald, except for a bit of ginger fuzz that would one day grow into thick hair. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. The priest extended his ashed thumb, marking my forehead with the sign that I am united with Christ in his death. Remember that you are dust and to dust, you shall return. “Surely, not my son?” I thought. “He’s just a baby.” The ashes lay in stark relief against his pale skin.
In the years to come, every year on a Wednesday in February I would come to the altar to be reminded of my mortality: rejoicing or grieving, content or weary, pregnant or infant in arms or shushing a child. This is what it means to live a Christian year - to follow Christ’s life and example season by season: Advent, Christmastide, Epiphany, Lent, Eastertide, Pentecost, and finally, Ordinary Time. Each season allows us to follow Christ’s example in a particular way, through patterns of fasting or feasting. Lent is a season of fasting and repentance remembering Christ’s forty days in the wilderness preparing for his Earthly ministry. Lent is not works righteousness - it is a well-ordered way to grow holiness by following Christ’s pattern.
Scriptures call us to spiritual disciplines. How then shall we choose to fast? Impulse? Guilt? Another emotion? A quid pro quo to get what you want from God? The church calendar gives us a time for everything, everything in its time. Lent is a time to weep. It is a time to mourn. It is a time to heal. While Catholics and Orthodox have specific fasting requirements, for Anglicans, the lead-up to Lent is a time for self-examination and reflection. What disordered passions do I need to set aside for a season to rightly order my affections around God? Could it be that instead of eating five pieces of chocolate while trying to teach math, there is another way I might respond to frustration? Could it be that media is creating too much noise in my life that needs to be silenced for me to hear God? Could it be that foregoing wine will help me to better anticipate the wedding supper of the lamb? Only in letting go is there space to receive.
It is Ash Wednesday again, and I somehow find myself at the same coffee shop. It has long since changed ownership and serves the worst cup of coffee in town, but it is the closest place where I can get Wi-Fi to work while my children attend orchestra. My eyes ache, and I just increased the magnification of my reading glasses; I measure out time in teaspoons these days. No one is trickling in yet with dirty foreheads – the noon service has not yet begun. The Anglican church has vacated the building across the street, relocating to a cathedral down the road. A non-denominational church now meets in the old building. The nave has become an auditorium, like most churches in town. The red Gospel candle is extinguished. The altar has been gutted and the chancel has been repainted black. A drum kit sits where the miracle of the Eucharist once took place.
Lentil soup is our humble supper - it is a good reminder of mortality. A recipe given to me by a friend actually tastes good - chopped tomatoes, pan-toasted cumin seed, freshly ground. It is nourishing and filling, but not satisfying. It leaves me wanting something more: a beer, a beefsteak, a brownie (or all of the above). I have no reason to continue to hunger with a full stomach, but I do. I was made for something more.
At the imposition of ashes, my daughter is the picture of childhood piety – pajamaed, clutching her beloved stuffed raccoon, Emmy, face stained with tears. It is the tension that every parent knows, allowing for a little extra rustling from a little one in church after bedtime. She is tired, it is late. Eventually, a line must be drawn - the twitch upon the thread and desire has given birth to sin. She had lost her pencil under the pew – it had a good eraser, and she couldn’t finish her drawing of a dragon. She wailed during the prayers, and, refusing to quiet, she was the recipient of a swift, paternal extraction. Maybe this is the closest she can come to contemplating her transgressions. I wonder how different I am, somber-faced. Am I truly repentant? Or sober in the face of the long fasting days ahead?
Lent jolts me awake. I had gotten cozy, making things comfortable, if only for a while. I bought a new French Press, and my morning coffee is satisfying again. My latest foot injury has finally healed, and I have returned to running. (The home is a happier place when mom can run). We finally scheduled the weekend hiking trip to Providence Canyon that we’ve promised the kids for years. Ashes awaken me as if from a dream. Did I convince myself yet again that this is my home?
Glancing around the room, the children are concerned about how everyone’s cross looks. The imposition of ashes on the first dozen or two results in a well-formed, ashy cross. Then, a change takes place. The crosses begin to look less and less like we expect. They become unrecognizable, looking more and more like dirty smudges. What is going on with the dirty foreheads? one might wonder. Every year there are families newly entering the old ways of the church. The children look around, evaluating everyone’s smudge. “Does mine look like a cross?” they ask. They are too young to know that crosses never look like we expect.
I carry my daughter to the car; she is heavy now. Next Ash Wednesday there will be no one left to carry – my children grow too heavy, too old. Pencil forgotten, she wonders what to do with her ashes. “Mama, what do I do with my cross?”
“Love,” I answer, “Jesus has already done all the work that needs to be done with the cross.”
So lovely! This is Katherine Bowers, John’s wife, and I’m so enjoying your substack. This line: “The children look around, evaluating everyone’s smudge. “Does mine look like a cross?” they ask. They are too young to know that crosses never look like we expect”--I wish I wrote it!