Today is Ash Wednesday, and Boulevard's service begins in less than 30 minutes. Not the best time to be blogging.
In my short pastoral memory, this appears to be the first time it has rained on Ash Wednesday. The imagery is striking for me. Within the hour, many people will join us for worship and, at a certain point, have an ashen cross scrawled on their foreheads. I will say "remember you are dust, and to dust you will return"; one of our strongest statements in the Christian church. What my meager words convey is hopefully a sense that we are temporary, and the ashen cross serves as a reminder of such. As a people we don't think of ourselves as temporary very often; Ash Wednesday is one of the few days that it is made plain.
What strikes me about our rainy Ash Wednesday is how quickly the ashen cross will be washed away; how quickly a reminder of our temporal selves will be forgotten.
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