An Account of Ash Wednesday

The ways that it was different than expected and the ways that it was beautiful

We are in the season of Lent currently. For most of my life, Lent was a vague concept to me (as was most of the church calendar, with the exception of Christmas and Easter.) In recent years, Lent has become a meaningful season of reflecting on my own smallness, not only in a humbled way, but also to feel grateful for something big and beautiful to dwell in even as I am small and dependent. This year, I was extra-aware of the upcoming Lenten season because I work at a Catholic school and our calendar for the week included Pancake Tuesday and Ash Wednesday.

On Shrove Tuesday, I dutifully ate my pancakes. Twice, in fact. At school and then again at home. (It wasn’t a hardship. I enjoy pancakes a lot.)

The following day, Ash Wednesday, I went to school feeling excited and a little nervous about having my forehead marked with ashes. I was aware of the forehead-marking tradition because it is a practice that we saw take place at the online church we were attending.  I would watch the leaders use the ashes to mark a smudgy cross on each other’s foreheads and think about how the process seemed both morbid and lovingly reassuring. “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

The bad news is, you’re going to die.

The good news is, you’re going to die.

This year, I was excited about having a natural opportunity to take part in this practice, since two priests were going to be coming to the school that I work at to perform the ash-marking ceremony.

I envisioned a meaningful scenario in which my one particularly frisky little student and I would go forward together, hand in hand, to receive our ashes. My little friend would be uncharacteristically calm and still, sensing the sacredness of the moment. I would be present and reflective, open to the moment which would, of course, be loaded with meaning, as the entire process of adjusting to being an EA has been so loaded with moments of life and death for me. We would tip our angelic foreheads towards the priest and…

Haha.

No.

That’s not how it went down.

Here’s what really happened.

I switch classrooms throughout the day, and it seemed like the priests were always a classroom ahead of me. I just couldn’t catch up!

The only times I saw the priests were in the staff room, on my break and again at lunch. Have you ever eaten pepperettes and a mini cucumber while sitting beside a white-robed priest? I have!

As the end of the day approached, it felt like everyone else in the school had an ashy cross on their forehead and I was coming to grips with the fact that I wasn’t going to have the “natural opportunity” that I expected to.

As I was walking towards the staff room for my final break of the day, I did some quick thinking. Maybe I was just going to have to be okay with not having my forehead marked. But toying with that thought made me realize just how badly I had wanted to be a part of this tradition. Thus I decided that if the priests were in the staff room when I got there, I would be brave and ask one of them if they could mark my forehead there.

I really hoped that they wouldn’t be there, because I reaaaalllly didn’t want to have to be brave.

Alas, I opened the door and there the priests were, in the staff room. Sitting at the table, chatting with some staff members, with their clear glass dishes of ashes neatly in front of them.

OF COURSE. Sigh. I felt mildly annoyed at God for placing this opportunity right in front of me.

I dilly-dallied around for several minutes, debating whether or not I had been serious when I’d decided that I wanted this badly enough to ask for it. A lot of the nervousness was coming from the fact that I had never done this before, and wasn’t sure if there were certain things you were supposed to do or say. I had been planning to follow the lead of the kindergarten students in the rooms I work in. Now there was no one to follow (not even one single tiny child) and I felt worried about doing it wrong somehow.

But I just couldn’t stand the thought of going home after work, sitting down on my couch, and knowing that I’d been so close to what mattered to me but hadn’t had the courage to chase it down.

So I stood up and went over to the priest who was currently not chatting with anyone.

“I haven’t had a chance yet to….” I motioned to my forehead, suddenly realizing that I wasn’t even sure of the proper wording for what I was requesting. “Would you be able to do it now?”

“Of course!” he said, standing up and seeming to know what I was asking for.

He dipped his finger in the dish, and I felt the grit of the ashes as he marked my forehead and said the words, “Repent, and believe the Gospel.”

The priest looked into my eyes and I looked into his and felt mild panic because there was a pause and it seemed like there was perhaps an expected response that I wasn’t giving.

I resisted the urge to blurt, “I’m actually not Catholic.”

He helped me out by saying, “Amen.”

“Amen,” I parroted, and then ran away.

Kidding.

I didn’t actually run, but I did make a rather quick exit and accidently returned to my classroom five minutes before my break was supposed to end.

I do apologize for the unattractive angle of this photo. I was trying to be subtle about my self-taking.

That is the story of my Ash Wednesday experience. As I reflected on it afterwards, I realized that despite some disappointment about it being a moment loaded with awkwardness and uncertainty rather than having a profound revelation of some sort from the Lord, the experience did hold significance.

For one thing, it was reminiscent of last year’s Lenten season, when I gave up silence. It seemed fitting to begin this year’s Lent by choosing to speak up and ask for what I needed. Since leaving our church in 2020, it sometimes feels like my spiritual life is built of bits and bobs that balance beautifully, but rather precariously. To be able to link lessons from one season of Lent to another brought a comforting sense of continuity to me. I am building alters as I journey, and it is joyful to revisit them and be reminded of the beauty held there.

And for another, it revealed to me that I had a deep desire to be a part of this Ash Wednesday spiritual practice. That it mattered to me to carry the ash cross on my forehead and to declare my belief that there is life even through death, if I am brave enough to seek it and then to see it.  

I am going to wrap this up by sharing a poem that means a lot to me.

Blessing the Dust
A Blessing for Ash Wednesday 
by Jan Richardson

All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners

or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—

Did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?
  
This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.
  
This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.
 
This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.
  
So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are
 
but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made,
and the stars that blaze
in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.