Ash Wednesday

A crucial meeting, followed by travel, keeps me from attending Ash Wednesday services this year.  In its place, I have "Ashes on the Fly" at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport.  The Reverend Donna Mote, Episcopal Chaplain at ATL, provides ashes to travelers arriving or departing on Ash Wednesday.  I found Donna on the E Concourse before my flight to Seattle.

"Remember, from dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return". 

In an essay entitled "The Weight of Ash", the Reverend Deborah Lewis writes: "It's an odd and intimate gesture, brushing someone's hair aside to mark her with death." And so in that moment I receive a reminder - of what I am, and what I will be in the end.  She says that when one receives the touch of the Imposition of Ashes, we are to listen for God's reminder, and walk away marked.  This is who you are.  Remember.

Remember.  Feels like that should be my Lenten discipline this year.