Ash Wednesday is tomorrow February 18th. I always have mixed feelings about Ash Wednesday. As a practice, remembering who we are and what we are, I believe it to be vital. We are remembering that God is God and we are… in some ways, just dust in the wind. It is a reminder of our limited nature and in contrast, God’s infinite nature. This is good as long as it is paired with the fact that God chooses us. Limited though we are, God chooses us. God chooses to know us, to love us, and to forgive us, which is especially important because we, dust, cannot earn it and do not deserve it. It is a gift.

My mixed feelings come from getting that whole thing across. We say the words, we confess our inadequacy, we get ashes on our heads. But how much of the lesson of Ash Wednesday will stick? And what if it is only the you-are-dust-and-are-just-going-to-die-anyways part?

A practice that I have seen growing is to mix into the ashes a little bit of glitter. Not just to be amazingly sparkly, but to remind those that receive the ashes, that they are fearfully and wonderfully made by God; that they are loved. The glitter added to the ashes, does not take away the ashes and their lesson, but reminds the receiver, that the dust from which they were made also comes from God and God chose it to make wonderful you. God loves what God made in you.

For the record. I am not going to be using glitter. It is not a
theological statement; I just do not like glitter. Ashes remind us that all things end. But in that end, for us, there is resurrection.