ashes

Last night, after travailing the Louisville bus system, I fought my way to James Lees Presbyterian Church for Ash Wednesday service. I was late because I didn't recognize my bus stop. As I arrived, harried and upset because I had missed the opening, I saw the table in front of the sanctuary covered in candles. I learned later that there was one lit for each of us in the service.
We were each handed a small piece of paper, on which we were to write down those barriers that keep us from being close to God. Phil, my minister and one of the officiators, quoted a Sufi mystic who spoke about how there are 10,000 veils between us and God, but none between God and us. We bent them in half, and placed each one in front of our individual candle, to shine light upon and through that which we keep between us and our creator. Then, one by one, the Phil and Judd (the other officiator) burned each of them to supply the ashes we would be using. Instead of tracing a cross on each of our foreheads, we dipped our hands in the ashes, covering them. As we felt the grittiness under our fingertips and over our palms, we contemplated how similar this is to the conditions of our own lives, spotted and speckled and coated with a grit that keeps us from revealing what we could be to each other and ourselves. We were charged to go about cleaning up our souls with the same desire we had to clean our hands. It gave a new, deeper theological meaning to Ash Wednesday for me, that I had been missing.
I was also left with a strong desire to keep my hands dirty, not because I didn't want to expose myself, because I felt a yearning to keep on the work of tearing down those barriers. I dipped my hands in the rubble that came from burning up those veils, and I wanted to continue that act of purification. I don't feel that I have done anything significant since I left Cincinnati in August. I have figured a few things out, healed some scars, and restored my emotional state, which is good, but not satisfying. That said, I am anxious to get back to the working for the kingdom of God; I am antsy to get my hands dirty again, helping restore our world and burn up those things that keep us corporately from being that which we are intended to be. I can't wait to get back into full-time service. It's just a matter of time.