Today is Ash Wednesday.  I haven’t been to church, I don’t have ashes on my forehead and I ate breakfast and lunch.  I don’t know who it was that first thought of burning the palm branches after Palm Sunday and saving the ashes for almost a year and then taking them and marking people’s faces with them.  I’m sure they meant well and all, but I must admit I don’t quite get it.  Don’t get me wrong I love the Lent season.  I love that time of introspection, reflection and repentance, but ashes?

In scripture ashes seemed to be associated with sorrow, you know sack cloth and ashes…and with purification.  I suppose there is a certain amount of sorrow associated with the Lenten season.  Both God the Father and God the Son experienced sorrow as God gave the Son to purify sinful human kind. 

I hope to someday meet the mastermind behind Ash Wednesday and learn the thought process that brought about the grey smudged cross on foreheads.  Until then…I will anticipate for the next forty days the wonderful celebration of Jesus’ great sacrifice and his victory over death.