Ashes
A Reflection for Ash Wednesday
Debbie Blow, OP
For me, Ash Wednesday and Lent have suddenly taken on a whole new meaning – one that is just beginning to unfold in my consciousness.
There was a time in our Christian formation that we believed “ashes” were placed on our foreheads as a reminder that “we are to remember that we are dust and unto dust we shall return.” I always resented that concept… after all, I had spent much of my life struggling to be “more than dust,” to be “loved,” to be “valued,” and frankly, I sort of resented someone telling me that I must repent and believe. Repent from what? Emotional abandonment? Abuse? What had I done that was so awful that I needed to repent from it? Or was the message being preached to me the right one… that I must remember that to dust I would return???
For anyone who has struggled with any sort of abuse, with any sort of struggle to be affirmed, valued, honored, recognized… yes, loved…. this whole Lent and Ash Wednesday thing was somewhat distasteful, if not abhorrent!
There was also a time in our Christian history that we were told that receiving the “ashes on our forehead” were symbolic—almost a “setting aside”—a sign to all who saw us wearing that speck of ash on our forehead, that we were “different,” we were “separate,” we were Christian, we were Catholic. Receiving the ashes was an acknowledgement of separation, not integration or inclusion.
What I wanted more than anything, or at least that was what I believed at the time, was to be included and accepted, not separated.
We usually did one of two things after we went to Ash Wednesday services: we either proudly wore those ashes for all to see, or we discreetly “rubbed” those ashes off as quickly as we could because they made us feel something we did not like feeling. Personally, I attempted to hide the ashes, just as I often hid other “marks” left on me. I did not want to be seen wearing those ashes, those “dirty” marks. I was already “dirty’ enough and already insignificant enough. I did not need another visible reminder.
I spent much of my younger life “feeling dirty.” I did not need another reminder. I grew up feeling dirty from hurtful acts inflicted on me emotionally and physically. I grew up feeling dirty because I did not fit. I grew up feeling dirty because I was poor. I did not need another reminder. But, like all “good Catholics,” I obeyed my parents and continued to receive that disdainful mark on my forehead.
Over the years, I stopped thinking about it, and just did it, almost apathetically.
Then August 2002 and February 2003 happened and something exploded deep inside of me. And a new, deeper level of healing, of living, began.
In August 2002, I went to the Managua City Dump in Nicaragua, where hundreds of children live—and die—amidst the garbage, the stench, the ashes. In fact, I personally witnessed a young mother holding her baby for the last moments of its life. The baby died right before my eyes and was carried off in an old rice bag to be buried in the ashes of the dump. And I sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed. For the baby, her mother, and yes, for me.
Then came February 2003 and three more trips to the dump. Why three more? I went with each group of young people on mission, at their request. They wanted to be accompanied as they took this life-transforming journey into the dump and asked me if I would please take this journey with them.
Why three more times? Why not 2 or 4 or 6? I am not sure. But I do know that the number 3 is scripturally significant, and I believe it is important for my own journey of faith at this time in my life.
Three more trips to the Managua City Dump—10 miles of the most inhumane living I have ever seen. There are mountains of garbage, toxic odors, choking smoke, and much more. There are half dead cows wandering around, searching for food, and competing with 3 feet tall turkey vultures for the spoils. There are also hundreds of people chasing after garbage trucks.
I was already struggling with returning to this place. Now, what if I saw the mother of the dead baby? What would I do this time?
And hope?? What hope? This was a hellhole. This was hell on earth, devastation magnified beyond measure, the epitome of despair. This was the “Golgotha of our world.” It, indeed, was the “place of skulls,” and I could not stop crying. I had already witnessed one of those “skulls” being carried off and buried in this heap of hopelessness. In fact, I was having a hard time to breathe, when suddenly; I was confronted with the eyes of an elderly woman, pushing her cart of garbage along this god-forsaken road.
She was blackened from head to toe with ashes! She was so coated with soot that she was literally black, as were so many countless others who lived in this dump. She looked at me as if to say: “Yes, I am here. I am a “mother of sorrows, too.”
It was evident that her suffering had seared her—seared her with the black marks of desperation, sadness, hurt, fear, and grief. And her eyes begged the question: “Why are you here? Can you enter into my sorrow? Can your compassion transform you? Transform your world? Transform my world?”
She was not wearing a simple black cross of ashes on her forehead. She was black from head to toe. She was a living reminder of the true message of Ash Wednesday and of Lent for me. For far more important than the “dust to dust” message of my youth, is the challenging question of my life at this moment, i.e., “Do you believe in the Good News?”
What good news? I wasn’t even convinced that God was here in this heap of ashes. And it was at this precise moment when I was uttering out loud, “Where are you, God? How can this be?” that I looked off to my right and saw a man with his arms raised to the heavens.
That was God’s response: “Here I am. I am right here, in the midst of the poorest of the poor. And how blessed are they, for they shall inherit my kindom of love.”
As the ashes were placed on my forehead this Ash Wednesday, I felt tears rolling down my cheeks. I felt something stir deep inside of me. I knew that my “Ash Wednesday” call, my Lenten observance, was to understand and live my life in such a way that rather than being separate from, I was called to live as one in communion with the “woman of ashes” in the dump.
All my life, I attempted to hide the ashes, or explain them away. Now, for the first time in my life, I received those ashes as a sign of my oneness with all of the human family, with the woman of sorrows in the Managua dump, with all in the Managua Dump. I now know why I had to return to the dump of despair. It was so that I could wear their ashes, experience their human struggle to survive, and hear their cry for help. The ashes we receive, the Lents we observe, are more about connection rather than separation, more about compassion and kindness and mercy.
I am being called to examine how, or if, I am living the Gospel message. Am I living with a sense of justice, of peace, of love? Do my words and deeds reflect this call?
The ashes we receive are a visible reminder that we cannot ignore any of our brothers and sisters in our human family. The ashes are a reminder that we must grapple with the plight of our sisters and brothers, seek the wisdom of our loving God, and live the call to “act justly, love tenderly, and walk humbly.”
Somewhere I recall reading that when Mary left the tomb, her life was marked forever. So, too, was mine as I rode away from the ashes of Managua, from the woman of sorrows in the dump. As we drove away, I watched as she continued her search among the ashes, a search for anything that would be life-giving. Perhaps the ashes smeared across this woman’s entire body were meant to be a reminder that each one of us is called to continue the search—the search for hope and compassion and truth amid the desolation and desperation of our world today.
Perhaps this experience was destined to occur, so that I could more genuinely live my life as a Sister of Hope, as a Woman of Mission and of compassion. Perhaps the ashes of my personal story will become one with the ashes of the woman of sorrows at the dump. Perhaps I am called to tell her story. Perhaps we are called to live in such a way that we are conscious of her reality. Just perhaps.