Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, has meant one thing to me for the past seventeen years of my life---getting ash crosses on our foreheads at church, on a Wednesday.
But this year, for some reason, something felt different to me. I'm not exactly sure why, but the symbolism of it all dawned on me (not that I didn't know it was symbolism before...). The gray ashes, from the left over palms of Palm Sunday, really meant the fragility and mortality of life. It really did symbolize our dependence on Jesus, just as fasting does. How simple, but at the same time, how intricately beautiful could a simple ash cross on a forehead be? And as every parishioner left the building to return to his or her own private life, probably filled with things to do and things to see, everyone was marked with a humble sign of fault and failure---with a renewed need for something more to fill the empty spaces. Beautiful.
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