Messiness
Ash Wednesday is a messy day for leaders in the church. Having to make the ashes into a consistency that will mark a person’s forehead with a cross is a messy business. I don’t like messy things. Glitter is the opposite of ashes in my eyes, yet it is messy. I’m not a fan of ashes or glitter. One darkens and one brightens. Yet both are messy. They are hard to clean up and seem to never go away like the needles of a real Christmas tree after being up for several weeks. Afterwards, for several months, we still find a needle here and there in the carpet. Ashes, glitter and Christmas trees are all messy.
Back to the ashes. Getting the right consistency of ash and oil is tricky. Adding one drop of oil at a time is about the only way to do it. Getting the ashes from the container to the mixing container gets dust and ash all around. As I did this last Wednesday, I had a scowl on my face; and, as I tried to remove the ash from my finger, that scowl reappeared. My friend and mentor, Pastor Erik, advised me to use a lemon to cut the mixture on my fingers to remove it. It worked, yet that was messy, too.
As I drove home that evening I thought that the ashes, although a symbol of us being created from dust and returning to dust at a death, are also a symbol of the messiness of life. There are moments of joyous celebration at Christ’s birth with a Christmas tree that later adds to the messiness of life when the needles drop and the remaining trunk and branches can be formed into a cross. There are moments of joy when glitter is used on cards and gifts, but there is the messiness, after reading it, when the glitter adheres to everything, even our hands and bits on our faces. It is hard to remove the ashes, to vacuum up all the needles, and to get that glitter off of every surface including our own.
Isn’t that life though? Things look shiny and nice at times and at others look dusty and tedious. Life is composed of them all at once. Rather than scowl at the messiness, I should smile at the outcome - the closeness people feel to God with ashes on their foreheads, the joy of seeing that Christmas tree and celebrating Jesus’ birth, the happiness that shining glitter brings when someone remembers us with a card or glittery wrapping paper symbolizing the gift of Jesus’ love. I need to reframe my mind this Lenten season to view the joy and happiness over the messiness, and even revel in the messiness that brings that joy.
