So we are now in the season of Lent. This part of the church calendar is marked, like Advent, with the color purple. It is a season begun by marking ourselves with ash, a symbol of death and of repentance. I had the privilege of serving communion at school this year on Ash Wednesday. In our community, this is one of the high holy days. We are a people who hold the reality of death and suffering close to the surface. The week before, a friend led the service, inviting those present to write down their confessions to be burned along with a palm frond to create ashes for our service. His invitation was to confess not only our depravity, but our glory–to participate in repentance by turning from our sin and turning from our refusal to see the goodness of God at work within our lives.

I was somewhat surprised by the number of people who came to the service last week. Many of our students come from traditions that do not mark the beginning of Lent with ashes. Though I have received ashes the last three years, and celebrated Lent for the last seven, this was my first time to give ashes to others. I began the day by going with Jocelyn to the chapel of St. Ignatius on the campus of Seattle U. before the start of her work day. The service there is always moving. The communal call and response, the reverence, and the presence of the building itself combine to create a sacramental space in which I feel that I am a participant in something holy and sacred. And yet, there is a sadness in my going there. I walk forward and receive the ashes, reminding me of my mortality, but, being protestant, I fold my arms across my chest and receive a blessing while those before and behind me in the line receive Eucharist.

Much of my theology in the last several years has revolved around how I understand grace. This has transformed everything about my understanding of the church, and has raised Eucharist to a central place in my own spiritual life. Sharing an open table as I have led services in the MHGS chapel, I have felt myself entangled in an ages old debate about grace, but more, I have found myself untangled inside as I have been embraced by the God who has already set the feast before we ever arrived.

Standing next to a friend who offered the bread and wine to members of my own community. I held in my hands a small clay bowl filled with ash. The line of people seemed unending. Faces of friends, some of whom I personally know have been shaped by death, appeared before me. Looking into their eyes, I marked their foreheads with a symbol of death–joining them together in a journey into our own humanity and moving toward a richer understanding of our rebirth through baptism that comes with the Holy week of Easter. Somehow, the ashes seemed sacramental in their own right…dispensing the grace that says, “Be small. Be frail. Be human sized, at least for these next few weeks. Allow the grace of the God who sees and knows how you are marked by sin to be enough for you. Death and sin do not scare God; it’s okay for them to scare you. You are not alone.”

Afterward, I wrote these words about my experience:

Laying my fingers across your brow,
my ashy thumb poised as I
look into your eyes,
story playing out between us.
We have stood here a thousand times,
you crying, “bless me.” And I
remind you of your death.

. . .

I soften my blow,
breathing first, as I gaze at your soul.
I inhale the history, herstory,
Your Story.
I speak, calling you
beloved.
“Child of God, remember,”
–And in that phrase
time unfolds and we are both
undone. You look away, but
we both know,
“from dust you have come, and to dust you will return.

Daniel Tidwell is a 3rd year MDiv student who lives in the Belltown neighborhood of Seattle. He is married to Jocelyn and together they garden and dream of ways to bring together people, place, and community–occasionally blogging about it between their work and classes. Read more from Daniel on his blog.