Ashes To Ashes and Dust To The Rescue...
Ash Wednesday is a day that few people consider remotely significant. But in my world it's important. Curiously, I rather appreciate this ritualistic acknowledgement of man's absolute depravity and even anticipate it. Not like I anticipate Thanksgiving...I mean, that's about really good food and laughing all day with family. And not like I anticipate Christmas, because Christmas is a drudge anymore...so much work and pressure and money.
No, I anticipate it like I anticipate a hot bath after backpacking a week in the mountains of northern New Mexico. I've been on a long, hard trek and I've got a lot of road grime built up in my most secret places. My body aches from the exertion and celebrates those aches for the achievement. But I just need to stop and be still for a while and consider where I've been and what I've done and how I might do it better next time.
That's how I anticpate Ash Wednesday. And in my new role as Minister of Worship at a large church in my community, the task of preparing ashes for the imposition landed right on my desk.
Just know that I've been challenged by this task before and never gotten it quite right. My first time out, I ceremonially burned the palm branches from the previous year's Palm Sunday celebration, ground them with a pestle, and at the appropriate time dipped my thumb into the mixture and tried to smear the ash on penitent foreheads. It didn't really work. What ashes did stick to my thumb flaked onto penitent eyelashes, noses, and white blouses.
The next year I repeated the process, but this time I kept a small dish of baby oil next to my ashes and dipped in it from time to time to guarantee a better "stick." By the time I'd imposed 5 or 6 of my sheep, I had a wad of oily ash on my thumb thick enough to flick across a badminton net and play back again.
Not to be confounded, the next year I repeated that whole process but added a bowl of warm, soapy water and a towel so that I could wipe my thumb from time to time. This was not a bad solution, but the altar was starting to look more like my kitchen sink than a sacred reliquary.
The search continued this year and I promised God I could do better. So I did what most seekers do, I "Asked Jeeves," who promptly sent me to Lutheran-land. Those people know how to do ashes. I learned that I was to add to the burned, ground palms a little mineral oil...not too much, and then emulsify the concoction by hand, which I did. Except I added too much mineral oil.
"Oh God, it's 4:00 and the service is at 7:00. And I have no more palms to burn. What do I do?" I sort of panic-prayed.
And it is no less than divine providence that caused me to look out the window and catch site of the drooping palm branches in the backyard, some of which had frozen in January's cold snap. I grabbed my scissors and a BIC lighter and soon holy smoke rose from the bar-b-que grill as I prayed over the smoldering palm leaves that had waved in the wind vs. the sanctuary last Palm Sunday, assuring myself that God had my back on this one.
I added the newly ground ash to my messed-up mix and it didn't make a dent in the oily mush. I burned more palms. And still, I found the test rub on my spouse's forehead looked more like an adolescent oil slick than a nice, black Ash Wednesday smudge.
"What do we do?" I asked my husband/lab-rat.
"Confess and repent." He said, wiping his brow and inching out the door.
"Flour! Flour would soak up the oil, and it's organic!" I said, but as I reached for the canister I remembered something else: dirt.
"Dirt?" you ask.
Not just any dirt. I am a native New Mexican which means that I keep holy dirt, miracle dirt, "tierra bendita," from the churchyard at Chimayo in my medicine cabinet. Legend has it that sprinkling this dirt over the lame can make them walk or placing a baggy of it under the mattress of the dying will bring them back to life. I figured it was bound to restore my ailing ashes.
Now, I'm not saying there was a miracle in my kitchen that afternoon. What I am saying is that I sprinkled a goodly amount of my special ingredient into the oily mush, working hard to think pure and holy thoughts so to infuse a spirit of love to the mix. And just for good measure, I added a touch of lavender so that the scent would be earthy and soothing. Finally, I put it all in a mortar dish and set off to church smelling like I'd sat around a mountain campfire all afternoon.
It was a good mix after all. The pastors were doubtful when they first spied it. But as they came face to face, thumb to forehead with pilgrim after pilgrim seeking penance, forgiveness, restoration, and relief...the milagro came about. Peace reigned. And for many-- ritual, once more, brought definition and structure to otherwise chaotic and unpredictable lives.
No, I anticipate it like I anticipate a hot bath after backpacking a week in the mountains of northern New Mexico. I've been on a long, hard trek and I've got a lot of road grime built up in my most secret places. My body aches from the exertion and celebrates those aches for the achievement. But I just need to stop and be still for a while and consider where I've been and what I've done and how I might do it better next time.
That's how I anticpate Ash Wednesday. And in my new role as Minister of Worship at a large church in my community, the task of preparing ashes for the imposition landed right on my desk.
Just know that I've been challenged by this task before and never gotten it quite right. My first time out, I ceremonially burned the palm branches from the previous year's Palm Sunday celebration, ground them with a pestle, and at the appropriate time dipped my thumb into the mixture and tried to smear the ash on penitent foreheads. It didn't really work. What ashes did stick to my thumb flaked onto penitent eyelashes, noses, and white blouses.
The next year I repeated the process, but this time I kept a small dish of baby oil next to my ashes and dipped in it from time to time to guarantee a better "stick." By the time I'd imposed 5 or 6 of my sheep, I had a wad of oily ash on my thumb thick enough to flick across a badminton net and play back again.
Not to be confounded, the next year I repeated that whole process but added a bowl of warm, soapy water and a towel so that I could wipe my thumb from time to time. This was not a bad solution, but the altar was starting to look more like my kitchen sink than a sacred reliquary.
The search continued this year and I promised God I could do better. So I did what most seekers do, I "Asked Jeeves," who promptly sent me to Lutheran-land. Those people know how to do ashes. I learned that I was to add to the burned, ground palms a little mineral oil...not too much, and then emulsify the concoction by hand, which I did. Except I added too much mineral oil.
"Oh God, it's 4:00 and the service is at 7:00. And I have no more palms to burn. What do I do?" I sort of panic-prayed.
And it is no less than divine providence that caused me to look out the window and catch site of the drooping palm branches in the backyard, some of which had frozen in January's cold snap. I grabbed my scissors and a BIC lighter and soon holy smoke rose from the bar-b-que grill as I prayed over the smoldering palm leaves that had waved in the wind vs. the sanctuary last Palm Sunday, assuring myself that God had my back on this one.
I added the newly ground ash to my messed-up mix and it didn't make a dent in the oily mush. I burned more palms. And still, I found the test rub on my spouse's forehead looked more like an adolescent oil slick than a nice, black Ash Wednesday smudge.
"What do we do?" I asked my husband/lab-rat.
"Confess and repent." He said, wiping his brow and inching out the door.
"Flour! Flour would soak up the oil, and it's organic!" I said, but as I reached for the canister I remembered something else: dirt.
"Dirt?" you ask.
Not just any dirt. I am a native New Mexican which means that I keep holy dirt, miracle dirt, "tierra bendita," from the churchyard at Chimayo in my medicine cabinet. Legend has it that sprinkling this dirt over the lame can make them walk or placing a baggy of it under the mattress of the dying will bring them back to life. I figured it was bound to restore my ailing ashes.
Now, I'm not saying there was a miracle in my kitchen that afternoon. What I am saying is that I sprinkled a goodly amount of my special ingredient into the oily mush, working hard to think pure and holy thoughts so to infuse a spirit of love to the mix. And just for good measure, I added a touch of lavender so that the scent would be earthy and soothing. Finally, I put it all in a mortar dish and set off to church smelling like I'd sat around a mountain campfire all afternoon.
It was a good mix after all. The pastors were doubtful when they first spied it. But as they came face to face, thumb to forehead with pilgrim after pilgrim seeking penance, forgiveness, restoration, and relief...the milagro came about. Peace reigned. And for many-- ritual, once more, brought definition and structure to otherwise chaotic and unpredictable lives.
1 Comments:
Thank you, Pastor Ellen. I was preparing ashes for tonight's Ash Wednesday service. I went on line to see if anyone had offered advice to someone like me, preparing ashes from palms for the first time. I will use the second method(two vessels and a cloth tonight).
Thank you applying your life experience liberally!
Pastor William, Dansville Presbyterian, New York
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