Ash Wednesday
I saw people at school today with ashes on their foreheads, and I remembered that today is Ash Wednesday. Yesterday, a classmate brought a King Cake to lab, and I remembered it was Fat Tuesday.
Yesterday, an instructor asked if I'd be at school today. She wanted to schedule a meeting with me. I just looked at her, because I could not remember. I knew I'd have to look at the schedule to find out. She remembered, and said, "You have lecture tomorrow."
Two days ago, someone in the elevator said, "You have lab today?" I didn't know the answer at first. She motioned to the uniform I was wearing, required on lab days. "Oh." Lately, I only seem to remember things when they are right in front of me.
I did not know there was to be an Ash Wednesday service at church tonight. Somehow I missed it Sunday in announcements at church, and in the bulletin, and in the newsletter.
An unrelated phone call this afternoon provided the information, and I thought, "Why not?" Tonight, at church, I could not remember the name of the person sitting next to me.
I am very tired. I think I must be exhausted by all the emotion in my life. You'd not know it by looking at me. I don't know what I look like, but I feel like I'm wearing a lead suit.
The service tonight was small, and we sat in chairs in a circle. When we spoke, it was about brokenness in the world, among ourselves, and within ourselves. I'm in the fine pieces category these days. I feel like I've been steam-rolled.
The image used tonight was a mosaic which can only be made with broken pieces. The mosaic is an image that offers hope. It's something to hold on to.
On the way to church, I encountered a series of objects of interference. In each case, there was almost a physical meeting of car and other. Fortunately, each event stopped just in time. I told a friend who said it sounded like a dream sequence or a moment in a Sundance Film Festival movie.
I was little more than a block from my house when a dog ran from the sidewalk directly toward the front of my car and in front under the wheel. Somehow, I did not hit the dog, and it ran back to the side of the street.
At the end of the street, I pulled up to a stop sign as a larger vehicle made a too-fast turn and just missed my car. I turned left onto that street, and before the next stop sign, a van was in my lane heading for me, with the driver looking backwards at something else. He looked forward again in time to pull into his lane.
I turned right at the stop sign, and as I went through the traffic light at the next corner, two birds the size of large pigeons, came flying and falling from the sky directly in front of my car, and either hit, or almost hit, the pavement. Then, they flew off in different directions.
In every case, I was only a few feet away from a collision with the other. In every case, I braked, and moved on to the next object(s) running, turning, driving, flying/falling towards me. I was glad to turn into the parking lot at church at go inside!
I don't think I have ever been to an Ash Wednesday service before. If so, I don't remember it. But, that doesn't mean much these days.
In the last few moments of the service, each one of us stood in turn and put the ashes on the forehead of the one next to him or her. Each one spoke the name, and said, "From dust we came. To dust we will return. May your journey lead you to wholeness."
I am exhausted. I am going to bed now with a textbook to read about cardiovascular and respiratory problems. I am certain I will be asleep before 8pm.
posted by jordanrep.com/10522 @ 7:58 PM
2 Comments:
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust....I didn't pick up on the day until I saw a woman with a dark cross on her forehead in the library.
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