Waiting different

In parish ministry I noted the phenomenon of people who only showed up in Church on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.  They were notably absent on the days one might name as cheerier.  Days like Christmas and Easter.  Yes, those two days have their sole adherents as well.  We all know about them.

This was going to be a piece on people focusing on the negative, remembering mortality and never making it to remembering divinity.   

Now it isn*t. 

I re-thought this after taking my two hour turn in the church library imposing ashes on the foreheads of the 27 people who came in off the street, only one of whom I had met before.  In English and Spanish, I spoke dust.  For the most part, there was no conversation beyond dust.  An occasional thank you.  An extended conversation with the mother of an eight month old: they both received ashes.  We discussed crawling and rolling and all the various forms of locomotion babies employ before they finally walk.  In between people I sat in silence and thought about the person who had left.  I prayed for the next person to come.  I waited different.

Consider this:

How is your mind set for the next person to walk through the door?  Is it open to what that person might offer, a brief interaction, a conversation?  When that person leaves, how do you think of them?  What do you think?   How are they like you?  How are they complementary to you?  How can you wait different?

Ash Wednesday

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent.  Many of my colleagues will stand in their clerical collars at train stations during the morning rush hour with the offer of ashes and a prayer to go with them.  Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return (they will say as they make the sign of the cross on people*s foreheads).  

I remember making the rounds as a hospital chaplain, offering ashes, and those same words.  There were many requests for ashes.  I was puzzled that people,often very sick, in the hospital somehow did not feel close enough to their mortality.  A mother who had just given birth asked me to put ashes on her baby*s forehead.  When I asked her why, she said:   It*s for me.  I never want to forget my child is mortal and fragile.  I never want to treat her as less than human.  With tears, I imposed the ashes on her baby*s forehead.  With tears, she witnessed them being imposed.

We are signed with the oil of Chrism at baptism, marked as Christ*s own forever.   The cross of ashes tomorrow reminds us again that we are each mortal and fragile and fully human.  

Consider this:

Who is it difficult for you to see as human?  As less than human or maybe more than human?  Often these people include those very close to us, particularly family members.  Sometimes it is ourselves.  No, really, often it is ourselves.  Remember he is dust, she is dust, you are dust.  Remember we all go down to the dust, yet even at the grave... we sing.  All of us.