some ash ramblings

photo © 2006 Sarah (Rosenau) Korf Today is Ash Wednesday.  Tonight I will try to attend our church's Ash Wednesday service.  I say "try" because I'll have the kiddoes with me, and while The Girl should be able to handle it (albeit in a very wiggly manner), The Boy may not make it to the imposition of ashes without a meltdown in the pew.  So maybe I'll get ashes and maybe I won't.  Which seems to be how I've approached Lent this year: maybe I'll observe it, maybe I won't.

Although that implies some sort of thought went into the maybe-ness.  And it didn't.  Which is a problem.  A month ago, I thought a little about it, but because Easter and Lent are so late this year, I put in on the back-burner of my mind.  "I've got time."  Hah!  And last week was a whirl of bereavement process and other bad news from loved ones.  And then my birthday was Sunday.  And it didn't hit me until Monday that Lent is about to start!  Argh!!

We still haven't made that Lenten wreath we were planning on (though I did manage to get the materials for it).  I haven't settled on any kind of fast for Lent or any kind of spiritual practice for Lent.  Nothing.  Nada.  Instead I'm reading Mockingjay (last in the Hunger Games trilogy), hurriedly trying to finish before the service tonight.  Because I can't get that story out of my head and I feel this great need to purge myself of it!  (Yes, I know I'm melodramatic. Next time I look to my husband for book recommendations, I will make sure he's read the WHOLE series before I begin.)  Because I have a problem with obsessing over bad news.  And The Hunger Games is a series full of bad news.  But maybe there will be some sort of triumph in the end.  Maybe?  I must make it to that triumph before I get completely stuck in the sadness and tragedy of it all.  I wanna skip to that triumph! 

Lent is a little like The Hunger Games in that respect - it forces me to face a series of bad news.  It's a dark time.  A time of remembering the road that led up to the darkest time - a time of pain and death.  I'd rather avoid it, frankly.  Rather skip to the light and flowers and triumph of Easter.  Forget this season of ashes - I wanna skip to the triumph!  But there would be no triumph without that road.

I wish the imposition of ashes would somehow magically impart wisdom.  I wish it would suddenly give me the discipline to follow a fast or a spiritual practice through 40 days.  But I know that it won't.  I know that any kind of Lenten road I take will be hard.  Unless I avoid it altogether.  So is it worth it?  Yes, I know it is.  But I also know I'll fail.  To some extent - I will fail. 

And so I am very thankful to know that at the end of the hard road, there will be triumph, and that it doesn't depend on me.  I am thankful to know that in the end, love wins (as a certain controversial pastor and author has asserted lately, to much uproar!).  How much harder it must have been for the disciples, and even for Jesus perhaps, when they didn't know.  That's a darkness I won't have to experience.  I, at least, know that my apathy and my stumbling and my failure will not be the last word. 

And so today, with a little ash (or without it), I will ponder the path that will lead me to a closer walk with Thee.  I will (finally!) think about what step I can take to mark this time.  And I will try to approach Ash Wednesday with some sense of hope rather than dread.  But regardless of my feeling, I will attempt to put one foot in front of the other, walking the road of ash.  Even when it's a long, hard slog.