Ash Wednesday: Marked by a Cross

photo courtesy of U.S. Pacific Fleet / flickr

It’s cold. South Carolina cold. The temperatures have dipped down several night into the high twenties. More than one night I left the spigots trickling—I am not sure South Carolina houses are built for this cold weather. My daffodils are slowly coming up. Here and there the touch of yellows gives me hope that soon the temperatures will slowly climb upward and flowers will cover the now-parched ground.

And so the Lenten season begins on Ash Wednesday. It is getting darker sooner and the wind is strong and some days the promise of a cross and an empty tomb and Easter seem far away. 

 We Christians need to remember who we are and whose we are. And that smudge—on our foreheads marks us once more. Not Republicans, not Democrats—not Americans—not Trumpers and not-ever Trumpers. We are marked by the sign of the cross. 

I admit, like many of you, I have listened to too much news, read too many newspapers and watch too many debates. I am bent low when I think about where we Christians are today—where our country and the world is today. There is this fissure, this great divide that separates us one from another. And if we keep listening to the pundits and all the gloomy fear-soaked news—we are liable to drown in this stuff.

Someone asked me what I am going to give up for Lent. No cookies or candy or shedding a few pounds.This Lent calls us to deeper things. What? A cross on our foreheads. It holds us more than anything else in this world. The old Anglican prayer for this season sets us straight. ”…come quickly to help us who are assaulted by many temptations; and, as you know the weaknesses of each of us, let each one find you mighty to save”.

What will I give up for Lent? All the out-there that widens every day.  No. I will give up, at least for a season all this I-phone, I-pad, Social media, Tweets that continually tell us the sky is falling. I will try to give these all up.

And I will try to remember that long line I stood in today as my turn came to receive the ashes. In front of me was this old man on a walker. There was a man whose face reflects the hardness of his days. There was that couple, holding hands probably college students. The woman behind me kept dabbing her eyes. I know no names here. Just that all of us need what we find at the altar. The reminder that “we are dust and to dust we shall return.” 

So I walk away carrying the burden of the cross. Outside a bird sings. The daffodils are slowly coming up. Here and there I see Lenten roses. Across the street from the church even in this cold—college kids throw frisbees and footballs. All around me I see life. And this is what I will not give up. Hope. Faith and Love. 

Yet Temp Sparkman’s poem gives me hope. He wrote the words after the tragic death of his nine-old daughter. His beautiful poem ends this way:

“Were things really ever green

And will the spring come back again

Yes, yes, as sure as e’re it were here

Yes, yes, as sure as winter’s here

Yes, yes, as sure as God is

The spring will return

And it will be green again.”

   —G. Temp Sparkman

I will do my best to push all the thus-and-so-ness of my life away. I’ll still vote in the Primary this Saturday. I will still pray that this country might just live up to our old-dream: liberty and justice for all. 

But I will remember the life stirring around me I cannot give up. Paul, more strident than Bernie Sanders, wrote in a very hard time:”Nothing will separate us from the love of God.” No thing.

I remember the one who gave us this cross. He said: Watch. Open your eyes. Look around you. Hear. Don’t miss what’s here. Maybe Mary Oliver says it best in her poem, “When  Death Comes”,  “ | don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.”

So this Ash Wednesday I have once again stood in the line. Remembering that my grieving friend may have said it best: “The spring will return and it will be green again.”

photo by Linda moving ahead / flickr

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com