On Ash Wednesday
This evening, in the parking lot of the Lutheran church that hosts my sons' day care center, the pastor was out offering to impose a cross of ashes on the forehead of any passers-by. It's a few-year-old tradition they call Ashes To Go, and my family did it once - back when we were Christian. Last year, in fact, we were so taken as to be drawn in to the sanctuary to attend their Ash Wednesday service proper. It was all about my mortality, my sinfulness, my puniness in the grand scheme of things, my inability to help myself, my need for holy water that nonetheless could never wash off the stain of the ashes. It was truly a beautiful service, and it genuinely moved me...just not in the direction the pastor had intended. I wondered what the pastor would think if I told him that last year's Ash Wednesday was another first step on my road to Judaism. What problem could I possibly have with Ash Wednesday, though, and with the bigger Lenten tradition it kicks off, when I am jum