Growing up in a Baptist church, Ash Wednesday was not something I took part in. But living in Miami, you couldn't go anywhere without encountering someone who was observing it. I remember the first two or three people I saw always threw me - especially the people who had gone to mass early in the day and their marks were on the smudgey side. I would wonder how that person didn't notice the big dirty mark on their forehead. Then I'd realize what was happening and I would have a Homer Simpson esq "Doh" moment.
I find beauty in the ritual. I enjoy being a part of it - even as an observer.
But if pictures like there aren't evidence enough
I no longer live in the big city.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy where I live. It's close enough to big city that I don't do without and yet still country. I drive past cows or horses depending which way I leave my neighborhood. There are working farms all around.
But I realized, this year, I was light on diversity.
Now, it could be that I didn't go to enough places - though I did go shopping to several places all over town. Or maybe I went out too early and the observers went to Mass later in the day.
Either way, I missed seeing it. I missed having the "doh" moment. I missed the visual reminder that Easter is only a few weeks away.
2 comments:
I love it. There's something about seeing others with ashes on their forehead that is comforting to me. Makes me feel like a close family member. Not in a superior way, but just a way to belong.
When I was in grad school in New York City, part of my tuition assistance came from working on campus for the department secretary. On Ash Wednesday, she turned to me and said, "I just don't know what these kids are into anymore. I must have seen three of them today walking around with smudges on their foreheads.... Do you think it's a goth thing?" ... I found her innocence sweet, but was surprised she hadn't noticed the smudges in all her years of living in the city. So, it's not so much being in an urban place, sometimes, I think, as it is noticing other people.
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