Ash Wednesday and Recognizing Community

I had a question this morning about Ash Wednesday.

What’s Ash Wednesday?

If you are not familiar with Ash Wednesday, it is a holiday in the original sense of the word. It is a holy day at the beginning of the Christian season of Lent, the forty days preceding Easter. A day of prayer and fasting.

Lent doesn’t appear in the Bible, but it is a solemn season of reflection and preparation for the celebration of Easter. During Lent, many Christians symbolically replicate Jesus’ sacrifice and withdrawal into the desert for forty days. They often deny themselves something, reflecting the scarcity of comforts in the desert.

The Mark

Ash Wednesday marks the first day Lent. And a cross made of ashes marks many people who observe this holy day. The cross symbol is placed on their forehead and they wear it the remainder of the day.

It’s made of ashes and oil or water. It’s a mark of penitence. Contrition. It’s also a very effective way, for at least a day, to identify one’s community.

More than a Feeling

Before we say more about that, I was curious about what wearing ashes feels like. So I asked a friend and learned that, once they are on your forehead, you really don’t feel them. It’s very easy to go about your day and forget that you look different. It’s only when you reach up to rub your forehead and your hand comes away smudged, or you pass a mirror and you are surprised by your reflection. Or, possibly more meaningfully, when you see somebody else who bears the same mark and you recognize them as somebody who shares your faith. And probably your outlook. So at some level, you have found a kindred spirit.

Manageable chunks

Sometimes our world is too much. We have difficulty making sense of it all. So, we begin sorting. We define shapes or boxes, then and try to get everything to fit accordingly. We look at an item, then try to determine if it is a This or a That.

We consider an idea, and then decide whether we agree with it. Are we Pro, Con, or ambivalent?

With simple things, this is a useful approach. We can sort quickly and decide which things we care about. Which things deserve our concern.

With complex things, our handy system of organizing our world breaks down. The more deeply we dive into a subject, our blanket statements about what to think or how to respond begin to unravel.

Keeping Safe

Part of our penchant for sorting is survival instinct. Every activity has inherent risks. Most of us don’t have to worry about wolves, bears, or invading conquerors today, but we still spend our days making snap judgments about risks.

Is that person good? What do they want? Can I get from my parking spot into the store without being accosted? Is this road slippery? What will happen if my car breaks down. Is my phone charged?

Data Reliability

If we are going to worry anyway, here’s a new concern. Snap judgments are based on our interpretation of available data.

How good are our sources? What if the person who shared information with us is not truthful? What if we are swayed by and acting on fake news?

How good are we? What if we are just lousy interpreters?

Shapes and Boxes

Let’s spend more time with ultra-complex subjects. People. You and me.

How do we find the right boxes? Here are just a few of the shapes and boxes we use. For each, let’s think of descriptive words. Do different words come to mind for you?

Size

Tall. Short. Fit. Fat. Skinny. Morbidly obese. Average. Thick. Muscled. Flabby.

Appearance

Face: Ugly. Handsome. Beautiful. Plain. Unremarkable.

Hair: Shiny. Wavy. Straight. Lank. Limp. Oily. Greasy. Curly. Kinky. Short. Long. Balding. Bald. Shaved. Messy. Skinned.

Age: Infant. Toddler. Child. Youngster. Pre-teen. Adolescent. Young Adult. Adult. Middle-Aged. Mature. Old.

That’s just a sampling. With each label come inferences and suppositions. They may be correct. Let’s remember they also may be far from the mark. There are also the standard sorting methodologies many of us resort to. Does this person:

• Look like me?
• Act like me?
• Talk like me?
• Dress like me?
• Live where I live?
• Drive what I drive?
• Have a job like mine?

The advantage, and the problem, with these criteria is that they are safe. Like a fence.

Frieze (1905-1915)
Cooper Hewitt Collection

A fence is a sharply defined boundary. Inside that boundary, we have room to move comfortably.

As a boundary, a fence is also a divider. Inside the fence are things that belong. Outside the fence are things that do not belong. They surround us in our safe, fenced area.

As suggested earlier, one simple point of connection can widen the doorway to community. Two crossing swathes of ash right after Mardi Gras allow two people to identify with and accept one another. What else is there? What marks you as somebody another person can relate to? You may not realize the mark is yours. But it's there. Wear it proudly and be open to the conversation it may prompt.

I challenge each of us to stand at our fencerows and talk with the neighbors. That's step one. Step two is to install a gate. It would be pretty radical to take the entire fence down. In fact, it probably wouldn't be a good idea. There are things in my defined space that make me uniquely me. And I'm curious about yours. So, for now, let's just create an entrance in our boundaries and use it for frequent visits.

Welcome in.