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Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent that leads to Easter. For me it marks an anniversary of sorts.\u00a0 Eighteen years ago, after being away from Christianity for a long time, Ash Wednesday was the day I found my way back.\u00a0 After attending a service at a local Episcopal church (now my home parish), I remember thinking, \u201cWell, whatever that was, it certainly wasn\u2019t Christianity Lite.\u201d\u00a0 It was stately and solemn and ancient and included the feel-good message that I was going to die (that\u2019s the way to pack \u2018em into church!).<\/p>\n
But it was Lent that brought me back, and in the years since then I have come to love the darkness and mystery of this season.\u00a0\u00a0In doing so, I realize that Lent is not for everyone.\u00a0 My husband calls it the stiffest drink the Church offers, and the more I think about that metaphor, the better I like it. Lent is like an aged Irish whiskey, complex and multi-layered.\u00a0 It is an acquired taste, one appreciated more as one grows older.\u00a0 It can be misused (too much emphasis on sin and not enough on renewal), but if one tries to gloss over it, as many Christians do, I think they\u2019re missing something strong and bracing. Without it, Easter is a pale shadow of what it can be.<\/p>\n
Around the world today, millions of people will go to an Ash Wednesday service and have a cross of ashes marked on their foreheads.\u00a0 Traditionally, the ash comes from the palm fronds saved from the previous year\u2019s Palm Sunday service.\u00a0 The palms represent the adulation and praise of the world, reduced now to dust.\u00a0 On Ash Wednesday we are reminded that the world and all it contains, including our own bodies, will in the end be nothing but dust.<\/p>\n
So Ash Wednesday is a reminder of mortality, the Christian equivalent of Buddhists meditating in a graveyard. It is also an invitation for a six-week interior journey, one of self-examination and penitence.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Here at The Holy Rover, we\u2019re pouring a stiff Irish whiskey for everybody in the pub.\u00a0 Care to join me in a wee dram?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m resurrecting what I said last year on Ash Wednesday, as I hope the sentiments still ring true: Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent that leads to Easter. For me it marks an anniversary of sorts.\u00a0 Eighteen years ago, after being away from Christianity for a long time, Ash Wednesday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2582,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[199],"class_list":["post-6034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lent","tag-ash-wednesday"],"yoast_head":"\n