Lent Begins

Last night we went to the Ash Wednesday service at our church. It was the first year we’d taken Sarah (who is now old enough to stay up a little later and to be quiet during the hour-long service). I hadn’t really thought through how she might respond to the service itself, especially the imposition of ashes.

When it was time to go forward to receive the ashes, Dana was carrying her (she was getting pretty tired by then) and I was right behind them. I hadn’t stopped to consider how I would feel when Dennett, our priest, smudged Sarah’s forehead with the sign of the cross. For a tiny heartbeat, I felt my own heart catch in my throat. This little person I carried inside me, this wonderful little girl I’ve nourished and nurtured for three and a half years since her birth, is mortal. I know…an obvious statement. Nonetheless it’s not a thought I have every day. She will, I hope and pray, have many long and lovely years of life still ahead of her, but one day her days, just like mine, just like her Daddy’s, will cease to be.

And in the next heartbeat of time, that was all right. I think it was all right as soon as I stepped forward to receive the ashes for myself, because it’s such an amazing and blessed gift to feel that grainy cross pressed into one skin. What is sown perishable will be raised imperishable, the Scriptures tell us, and it’s all on account of the cross.

When we got back to our seats, I took Sarah onto my lap. She was looking mighty perplexed as she stared first at the dark smudge on my forehead, then at the smudge on her Daddy’s forehead. Sarah doesn’t like it when anyone gets too “dirty” so I had a worried moment that she was going to throw a loud fit and insist we all wash our faces, but she seemed to understand somehow that this was different. Perhaps because we were at church at night time (and we’d told her it was a “special” service) perhaps because of the beautiful and solemn hymns we’d sung and prayers we’d prayed, perhaps because other people, herself included, had that strange smudge on their foreheads. She didn’t fuss, just continued to stare quizzically at the mark. I leaned in and whispered “do you see the shape? It’s the shape of a cross. It’s to remind us of Jesus and how much he loves us.” As soon as I said it, Sarah (who had put her two fingers in her mouth the way she often still does when she’s sleepy) wrapped a tiny little smile around her fingers, as though she understood. As though she was blessed.

And you know, I had an immediate sense of peace, because what I said was true. I didn’t need to say anymore, or try to unpack a full “lenten theology” for my preschooler. Ash Wednesday is about so many things, including the acknowledgement that we are indeed fragile and mortal. But it’s also about Jesus, about the way he took on and shared our mortal flesh and forever redeemed it through his suffering, death and resurrection. That sign on my forehead, and on the forehead of my little girl, is at once a sign of death and a sign of life, not unlike the sign of the cross with which she was marked in her baptism just three years ago.

I couldn’t help but go to the Book of Common Prayer and to another service (besides the traditional Ash Wednesday service) where we hear the phrase “dust to dust.” It’s a beautiful prayer that comes in the commendation part of the burial service, reminding me of who we are and who God is:

“Thou only art immortal, the creator and maker of mankind; and we are mortal, formed of the earth, and unto earth shall we return. For so thou didst ordain when thou createdst me, saying ‘Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.’ All we go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.’”