GROWING SEEDS; "Ash Daily"

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Ash Wednesday Daily

"ASH DAILY"

Have you ever had this driving desire to tell people about something BIG that happened to you yet when it came time to tell your story, the words just disappeared.....WHOOSH.....vanished.

That's where I'm at tonight.  So forgive me if I stumble around a bit.....

Today is Ash Wednesday.  How many of you know what that means?  I know a fair amount of you do cause I saw you tonight....at church....having the ash from the burned palm branches used in the previous year's Palm Sunday service, placed on your forehead in the shape of the cross......just as I did for the very first time in my life. 

Now, I must admit, I was a little afraid to tell some of you that.....I wasn't raised to celebrate Ash Wednesday.......and I can almost feel you cringing uncomfortably, shifting in your chairs and thinking this was strictly a Catholic tradition.  It's not.  It's a strictly Christian tradition.

I found it ironic that a girl who had never celebrated Ash Wednesday before in her life had been asked to write an article about this event for her Methodist church bulletin last weekend.  I had to recite the time when I was about 20 years old and my co-worker Sandra came in late to work with a smudge on her face.  I called her over to my desk, stood up, spit on a tissue and wiped the smudge right off her forehead.  Two minutes later I heard of Ash Wednesday for the first time....from a not-so-happy co-worker.  And I have to admit, this past week I had to Google what Ash Wednesday even meant.  But as I learned more and more about it's purpose.....it's meaning.....I had to wonder why we never celebrated this in the church I grew up in.  I mean, we believed everything it stood for.

A man by the name of Brusatti said it best when he said "there's something powerful about the cross-shaped mark millions of Christians receive on their foreheads every year on Ash Wednesday.  It's a public sign of one's personal faith, a reminder of one's mortality and a pledge to repent and draw closer to God in preparation for Easter."  But I say it's so much more.   It's humbling yourself to accept God's grace.....a time of repentence.....a time of reflection....and a time of change.  

I believe the name "Ash Daily" is far more appropriate than "Ash Wednesday".  And I believe Easter this year is going to mean so much more because of what I experienced today.

Happy Ash Daily!