It may seem odd to most, but Ash Wednesday has always been one of the most important days of the church year to my spirituality. Lent provided me time to stop and reflect -- intentionally to pray about my own sin (usually busy-ness) and ponder the meaninglessness of my own work. Without the Spirit, pastoral work simply doesn't make sense and isn't possible over the long term.
So it's probably not a surprise that Ash Wednesday is one of the liturgical acts I miss most. Ash Wednesday was such a formative experience on my pastoral ministry, precisely because of its intimacy. I recall, as a grad student, ministering ashes to one of my profs. That pastoral act was a humbling, intimate experience that shaped me in ways I never realized at the time.
And its therefore one of the pastoral acts I most miss.
I was reflecting this year on that, and wrote the following poem.
The Pastor's Thumb
My trembling thumb once marked a man
So it's probably not a surprise that Ash Wednesday is one of the liturgical acts I miss most. Ash Wednesday was such a formative experience on my pastoral ministry, precisely because of its intimacy. I recall, as a grad student, ministering ashes to one of my profs. That pastoral act was a humbling, intimate experience that shaped me in ways I never realized at the time.
And its therefore one of the pastoral acts I most miss.
I was reflecting this year on that, and wrote the following poem.
The Pastor's Thumb
My trembling thumb once marked a man
in a year I knew would end the ritual
of her annual ash.
"Remember you are dust ..."
I faltered on the rest.
Do doctors feel so transgressive
when they are forced to break
the polite illusion of immortality?
We all know it's not true.
Death haunts our every move.
But to say it is to invoke a power
that explodes us, rending, rendering
us mere motes, mere mortals,
merely, awfully human.
She did not quail. She bore with dignity
her sentence. And I went on to mark
others -- family, friends and strangers.
Damn my quailing thumb of ash!
Smudge every living thing with truth!
Until we yield
and dissipate,
scattered to a life unknown.