Ash Wednesday was two days ago—an especially busy day for us hospital chaplains. I had a full day planned, with rounds to various places on and off campus for the "imposition of ashes." As it turned out, the day was even busier than expected.
I am always amazed at how meaningful this service is to people who have been raised with the tradition, and how meaningful it has become to me as well. The ashes are from the previous year's palms from Palm Sunday, which are burned and saved for the next year's Ash Wednesday. Recycling at its finest.
Ashes are so messy, icky. I spilled some on my desk and they were so dirty and gritty, I’m still scrubbing the stain. (It's kind of like life, eh? Messy, dirty, spilling, staining...)
Amidst "MY" busy day, I was being paged back and forth to the E.R. to tend to two elderly patients who decided that returning to dust and ashes that day was a fine idea. Well actually, they didn't decide, but instead rather surprised their families by events that signaled the end of life as they all knew it.
Sudden turns in events remind me of a story I recently heard which was told by the Hasidic Jewish peoples...about a directionally challenged man who always kissed his wife and children goodnight, walked upstairs, undressed and pointed his shoes facing the direction he planned to go the next morning when he woke. But many times, unbeknownst to him, an angel entered his bedroom and while he was sleeping, turned his shoes around to point in another direction. ... Boy, oh boy, is that ever life as I know it!
The situation on Ash Wednesday was particularly poignant, in that I was conducting the ritual in one room of the hospital while the reality of dying was happening in another room. The ritual was planned; the reality was not. Both rooms were overflowing with the emotions involved in remembering that we are dust, and to dust we shall return.
(Well, I'll bet you didn't expect to get a sermon. But there, you got one anyway. The angel turned your shoes around. No charge for either the sermon or the turning of shoes.)