Not to worry. At least I've collected the basic supplies.
Over many years and in many settings I have had the privilege of applying ashen crosses to the foreheads of a wide range of folks -confirmation campers under the canopy of a redwood forest, an ecumenical collection of college students crowded into a university chapel, elderly shut-ins who needed no reminding that this life is beautiful, fragile and limited, infants who hadn't yet defied a parent, tasted strawberries, thrown a snowball.
I have at times been over-ambitious with the ash, dribbling a trail of soot onto eyelashes and noses. I have accidentally dislodged wigs and lifted up bangs crispy with hair gel to make way for the cross. I have traced giant ashen hearts onto pates bald from chemo and graced foreheads marred with acne. I have caught someone's eye and laughed at just the wrong/right moment, unleashing a ripple of the kind of giggles that are hard to stop on such a somber day, probably ruining it for some. I have been surprised by a tidal wave of love and grief and awe that snuck up on me, excusing myself until the floodgates could be closed. I have gone home too tired to wash the cross off my own forehead and awakened to its shadow with forty long days standing between me and the promised resurrection.What will God do with us, in us, and through us in the next forty days?
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