Ash Wednesday

I didn’t grow up in a tradition that embraced Lent. As I’ve explored the concept in recent years, I’ve fallen in love with Ash Wednesday and the Lenten season. Ash Wednesday was the last special service I attended BC (Before COVID). The pastor spoke that night with vulnerability, literally removing her traditional robes, jewelry, shoes, and even her makeup, during her transparent, moving message about façades. 

Towards the end of the service that night, the pastor, still barefoot and smelling lightly of her makeup removal cloth, dipped her finger in the oiled ashes and crossed my forehead with it. “Remember, you are dust and to dust you shall return.” 

That was the first time I received ashes.

It was personal. It was intimate. It was tangible. It was everything my faith was struggling to be.

Within a few weeks of that experience, COVID-19 became a household term and the whole world changed. My jobs, and interacting in person with people regularly, shut down. My classes went online. More than one class came and went without me ever seeing or hearing a word from the professor or other students outside of posted assignments. Church shrunk to a face on a laptop screen and I shrunk from worshiper and interactor to audience and commentator. Because of COVID and other circumstances, I increasingly find myself missing personal, intimate and tangible.

It’s almost the season of Lent again. When I turned the calendar this week and saw Ash Wednesday, I was filled with longing for the night I spent bearing those ashes. More than just a night in a sanctuary, I am longing for the “real” that the Pastor spoke of. I am tired of façades, tired of being burned by hypocrisy (my own and others), and I’m craving real. Maybe you are, too.

In one of my first experiences with Lent, I accepted a challenge to only eat unprocessed foods for a Lenten fast. I hated it. Every part of it. At the end, I excitedly went for some random junk food I’d been looking forward to, and it tasted like crap. I had developed a taste for real and now nothing else would satisfy.

Many of us are not attending in-person services this year, whether due to COVID-related issues, disenchantment with the church, a faith deconstruction process, or any number of other reasons. Despite all my issues with attending, not attending has left a void. 

I’m craving real. Real relationships, real faith, real hope, real joy, real me. Like the fast I did several years ago, I want to take a hard look at my life and address where I have been exchanging real for counterfeits, cheap replacements, and fakes. 

With my house continuing to be home, work, school and play for my family and I, I’ve decided to start with my house. I’ve done decluttering challenges before – even for Lent –  but the point of them has always been to just get rid of stuff. And the problem with just getting rid of stuff is…the stuff comes back. and it usually brings friends. This time my goal is not to get rid of a certain number of bags or boxes or pounds, but to take a look at my stuff through the lens of “REAL”:

How do I really feel when I step into this space?

Why did I really buy this?

Why am I really keeping this?

What image did I really hope this would project about me?

Along the way I’ll be posting weekly thoughts here on this blog, plus daily updates, challenges and ideas on my Instagram page “uncoveringreal.” Challenges are better with friends, so I hope you’ll join me. You can do the same challenge with your own stuff in your own space, or come up with your own challenge to do alongside mine – maybe you want to start with your finances, your social media accounts or your own unprocessed food challenge. Even if you want to just watch like a wallflower for awhile, I can’t wait to do this process with you!

-D