Ash Wednesday
The Greek Orthodox do not have Ash Wednesday, but in the last 14 years since I moved to my now home, I have come to appreciate this tradition of palms-turned-ashes as the start of the season of Lent.
Palms: smooth to the touch, easily slipping through my fingers. I still remember how to fold them into crosses. I still remember the smell of the church kitchen on Lazarus Saturday, when women and girls gathered to do this Holy Week task. Even now, anytime I am holding something long, thin, and fold-able--a straw wrapper, a scrap of construction paper or sturdy fabric--I absentmindedly fold it into a cross.
Cross: instrument of torture, emblem of holy love. When I am working out, I stare at the brick wall and pray the rosary. Sometimes I focus on the place where the two edges meet, the center of a cross made of four bricks joined together, small square, and I think of Jesus' heart.
Jesus' heart: Unlike the Catholics, we didn't think or talk or see heart-imagery when I was a child. But sometimes my heart would still to a murmur during church, and I would be sure I was passing from this life to the next life--but no. I was just growing still, still in a way I wasn't usually.
I long for that stillness. I found it today, twice.
Ash Wednesday: In the morning, we went together to Catholic Mass. T hadn't been in years and felt the longing most lapsed Catholics feel on holy days. As we walked toward the front of the church, I became aware of a woman who had confronted me at the gym to tell me Jesus was against gay marriage, to tell me she would be praying for me. But I went up anyway, let the priest mark my forehead. On the way back to the pew, I passed one of my closest friends, whom I rarely see. She was weeping. I hugged her briefly, cried a little, then went to work. On with my day.
Ash Wednesday: We went to a healing service at the church we attend tonight. When it was time to ask for healing, S went up and talked to our pastor about her own deep pain, obsessions, confusion. Of course I don't know what for sure. I asked if she wanted me to go up with her--she's always said yes before--but she said no. She is growing up, developing her own relationship with God.
T and I went next. The pastor knows us well, is shepherding us through the process of preparing to get married. We asked for prayers for healing of the wounds of our past, all three of us, as well as any wounds we might inflict upon each other in the future. She held us and anointed us and blessed us and prayed words I no longer remember but that were perfect in that moment.
At home, the three of us sat together and wept and then, we joked around and sang silly songs and headed up to bed, where I'm lying now, typing away.
Lent has begun.
Palms: smooth to the touch, easily slipping through my fingers. I still remember how to fold them into crosses. I still remember the smell of the church kitchen on Lazarus Saturday, when women and girls gathered to do this Holy Week task. Even now, anytime I am holding something long, thin, and fold-able--a straw wrapper, a scrap of construction paper or sturdy fabric--I absentmindedly fold it into a cross.
Cross: instrument of torture, emblem of holy love. When I am working out, I stare at the brick wall and pray the rosary. Sometimes I focus on the place where the two edges meet, the center of a cross made of four bricks joined together, small square, and I think of Jesus' heart.
Jesus' heart: Unlike the Catholics, we didn't think or talk or see heart-imagery when I was a child. But sometimes my heart would still to a murmur during church, and I would be sure I was passing from this life to the next life--but no. I was just growing still, still in a way I wasn't usually.
I long for that stillness. I found it today, twice.
Ash Wednesday: In the morning, we went together to Catholic Mass. T hadn't been in years and felt the longing most lapsed Catholics feel on holy days. As we walked toward the front of the church, I became aware of a woman who had confronted me at the gym to tell me Jesus was against gay marriage, to tell me she would be praying for me. But I went up anyway, let the priest mark my forehead. On the way back to the pew, I passed one of my closest friends, whom I rarely see. She was weeping. I hugged her briefly, cried a little, then went to work. On with my day.
Ash Wednesday: We went to a healing service at the church we attend tonight. When it was time to ask for healing, S went up and talked to our pastor about her own deep pain, obsessions, confusion. Of course I don't know what for sure. I asked if she wanted me to go up with her--she's always said yes before--but she said no. She is growing up, developing her own relationship with God.
T and I went next. The pastor knows us well, is shepherding us through the process of preparing to get married. We asked for prayers for healing of the wounds of our past, all three of us, as well as any wounds we might inflict upon each other in the future. She held us and anointed us and blessed us and prayed words I no longer remember but that were perfect in that moment.
At home, the three of us sat together and wept and then, we joked around and sang silly songs and headed up to bed, where I'm lying now, typing away.
Lent has begun.
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