The Giving of Ashes
Ash Wednesday
Like rows of unlit prayers
we wait—silently, blindly—
for what we cannot hope to apprehend;
hoping to be ignited by the scarred hands
of a priest never seen, yet
always watching
seldom heard,
but always speaking—the invisible word.
Just one word from him would set this
skeletal cathedral ablaze with light;
a sacred conflagration,
this Baptism borne of fire and blood.
After all,
that is why you are here.
you sensed it once, but the flame has died.
You wait for resurrection’s fire,
but are marked with ashes.
remember that you are dust
Your prayers rise like smoke.
It was a chilly evening in early spring, and my husband and I were running late. In the highly introverted pacific northwest, it is a momentous occasion to leave the coziness of one’s home on a dreary midweek evening—a decision not entered into lightly—especially for a church event. Our hesitance to leave the house at dinner time had cost us a few extra minutes on our journey to an Ash Wednesday service, which made our drive quite stressful, and anything but holy.
Upon arrival, we slipped in to an empty wooden pew in the back as inauspiciously as possible in the small stone sanctuary sparsely populated with twenty (on-time) people. I remember cringing at the deafening creak of our pew as we sat down, causing multiple curious heads to turn. I wanted to crawl under my seat when the roar of unzipping our coats momentarily drowned out the gentle voice of the priest up front, who was reminding those gathered of the liturgical significance of Ash Wednesday.
As my racing heart calmed and I was satisfied that we were no longer the loudest event in the room, I began to listen—compelled by the fact that the priest was blind yet confidently pacing the room as he spoke of Jesus’ returning and how to live like God is real in the meantime. I have not experienced what life is like for someone who is blind, but it struck me how absolutely vulnerable it might feel to be a speaker, highly visible yet not having the luxury of seeing faces that tell you how your message is landing, or if anyone is listening at all. I felt in awe of his bravery, which to him was likely not bravery at all—he was simply living out his calling with confidence and trust, as each of us are invited to do. The priest spoke with casual, unconcerned ease, and I concluded that I was the uncomfortable one.
Something about him was exposing my own deep fear of being fully seen and vulnerable with others.
What happened next changed me, and it is changing me still.
Following the message, we slowly proceeded to the front of the sanctuary to receive ashes, kneeling on a worn velvet prayer bench and folding our hands upon the wooden railing—shoulder to shoulder with strangers and saints. “From dust you came, to dust you will return,” I heard the priest murmur further down the line of supplicants. As he drew nearer, I saw that with one hand the priest was holding a small bowl of ashes, and with the other, he was searching the air for the next recipient. I watched as his hand felt for me. Upon finding me, he gently cupped the back of my head with his hand and imparted the ashes with his thumb.
“From dust you came, to dust you will return,” he said, his eyes looking past me while also laying my soul bare.
Past experiences of harm have made it difficult for me to trust the male gaze and touch, and in that moment I experienced the safety that comes from being unseen. Knowing that my forehead was simply a blank canvas upon which to receive the same grace that had been given to him as a child of God, my body released the tension I did not know I had been holding. In that sacred moment, the male attention I was given had nothing to do with my being a woman. I was given ashes simply because I was there, wanting them—needing them.
The priest’s physical blindness gave me the freedom to simply receive the gift that was given: a kind touch, some ashes, and sacred words that remind me I am not alone on this journey from life to death to life.
* * *
As I returned to my creaky wooden pew, I thought, “I need to write about this,” but for one whole year I have not been able to put into words what this meant to me, though I think of this night often. It is the week of Ash Wednesday again, and I do not want to let another year go by and risk the memory and its significance growing dimmer in my heart.
The vulnerable love of this priest for his congregation reminded me of Jesus, who became utterly vulnerable in a human body, subjecting himself to birth and scraped knees and puberty and washing dirty feet and even death on a cross.
When the priest approached me I felt like Peter being approached by Jesus, who was clothed in utter humility, towel and basin in hand. “Oh no Lord, not me!” he cried as his Priest knelt to cleanse his feet. Upon Peter’s protest, Jesus let him know that this is precisely what God requires of him: to lay aside all pretense, pride, and false humility and receive the cleansing touch of Love. To obey the voice which speaks “Clean” and “Worthy” over us, even when everything inside cries out against receiving this unearnable grace, and to extend that same message of love in service to others.
I picture Jesus before his death, and the humility of being blindfolded by those he came to save—not seeing who hit him as they spit upon him and mocked him. I think of what the ashes and the priest’s hands teach me about death graced with love—raw, exposed, bleeding love. I am made of dust, and my fate is death—returning to the very dust from which I was formed.
But here is the deepest truth of all: the scarred hands of God which cradle me from birth to death will also carry me into eternity.
This is what Ash Wednesday does for those who follow Christ: it symbolically prepares us to suffer with Christ along his road to the cross—to suffer even the impossible tenderness of a cleansing, purifying love that can feel painful to receive. To hold the hand of grace instead of condemnation.
On that Ash Wednesday one year ago, I experienced the touch of redemption from the hands of a male priest who saw me solely with the eyes of the heart. Today, I take upon my brow the mark of the “Great High Priest, whose name is Love”—a Priest whose hands still reach to touch, who sees our hearts and calls us “Worthy,” who journeys with us on this dusty road, all the way Home.