My attitude about ashes has changed

Ashes to ashes

It’s interesting how, as we mature in age and—we hope—also in spirit, spiritual matters take on new meanings—like being marked with ashes on Ash Wednesday.
When I was young and totally self-absorbed, I was reluctant and a little embarrassed to be marked with ashes.
What would people think when they noticed those ashes on me? That I had a dirty smudge on my forehead and didn’t have sense enough to clean it off?
At that stage of my life, it was all about me and other people’s perceptions of me, and I was sure they were just as interested in me as I was.
Later in life, I was eager to be marked and took pride in going public with ashes on my forehead. I hoped that others would notice and ask me about that smudge. I wanted to be able to claim that I was religious, that I was willing to carry that badge demonstrating my allegiance to Christ, that I was a witness for Christ’s sake.
It was still somewhat all about me.
Many years later—and many experiences in ministry later—I have a very different attitude about being marked with ashes.
As a pastor, standing at the gravesides of people I have loved, I have said the words, “…earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust…,” while scattering whatever the funeral home provided for me to scatter. The substance I scattered didn’t matter to me, but those words did matter to me, and in time, they helped the image of ashes take on deeper and more complex meanings.
Now in the last third or so of my life, when I am marked with ashes, I think of frailty and vulnerability. I think of sin and failure. I think of death and resurrection to new life. I think of sacrifice and servanthood.
I am still eager to be marked, not for the sake of making a visible witness to Christ’s sacrifice for me but in the hope that the mark of ashes will not be superficial but will be a deeper spiritual mark that guides my journey through Lent.
Even with that hope, my prayer is that I won’t make the mark or the season all about me.