Ash Wednesday
I am sitting here, ashes in the shape of the cross etched on my forehead. Christ Church this morning- my annual pilgrimage to receive the mark of death, followed by the Eucharist- the promise of hope and life, of possibility, the victory really, over impossibility.
I am well acquainted with impossibility. I must have drunk it with my mother’s breast milk. Steeped in it, I was, like a helpless little tea bag, reminded again and again of all that cannot change and how to make do. Make do, do, do. God will give you the strength. That was our hope- the God-given strength to bear what sometimes seemed unbearable. I do that well- bear things. “Take up your cross” Jesus says and people used to quote that to me as if it explained so much shit in my life and yet today waiting for my ashes I felt certain that that is not the cross Jesus meant for me to take up- the make due cross.
Father Lias read a wonderful quote by Somebody Holloway that I wished I could have written down but I had purposely taken no pen so that I wouldn’t be writing in my head, but rather be open and listening and yet as I listened and tried to stay open, I was also writing in my head faster than my head could follow.
Mr. Holloway had a simple, yet profound, thought about the fact that we are physical beings who live in a state of waiting to die- of dying right from the start really. And a state of marvelous grace with the hope of transformation and life. He talked about the tension of living a truly spiritual life. The sometimes painful pull of living both toward death and glory. There was something that rang so true to me about the juxtaposition of ashes and glory, death and transformation....
I am terrified of dying. On the purely physical level I am terrified of it. When I was little I would try to stay awake so I wouldn’t drift off toward death when I drifted off to sleep. I would lie awake and fret about what if there is nothing after life, what if after all is said and done I will just have been a speck of dust, a box of ashes and bone fragment, what if there is no life after death, no reconnections, reunions, “better place”. I still worry like this if something scary has happened or if I need a med. adjustment! Now I mostly agonize over this in relation to my children. The thought of not being alive to love my boys can bring me to my knees on a good day. Never mind on a bad day.
This morning started as a bad day. My husband and I spending yet another morning misunderstanding and feeling misunderstood and not being able to get past what seems all hurts past and present. I went to church with that hurt heavy in my heart. In my gut really. It was churning around in there with all the crap I’ve eaten lately. The Oreos and Suzie Q’s, the cupcakes, whoopee pies and Friendlie’s Forbidden Chocolate ice cream.
I wished for confession at church today. I tried to create it in my own head but things always get so crazy and confusing inside my own head. It’s like a maze and once I get started I seem to come upon little zigs and zags that I can’t help but follow and I end up all over the place and kind of frantic. I was having a hard time concentrating today. I was trying to listen about ashes and dust and lent and self-denial and fasting and discipline and doing without or adding works of mercy and I loved what I could hear but it’s like there was interference and my own voice kept talking over Father Lias’ and it kept talking about food. About sugar and frosting and chocolate and donuts and ice cream and brownies and chocolate croissants from Cassis and I felt like I almost couldn’t kneel or pray there was so much food in the way. And I realized what an ENORMOUS distraction food is to me. Not the food itself but my feelings about it, my need of it, my fear of it. I hear “self-denial” and I think “HOW?” I am denied so much and feel like I have been since birth how the hell am I supposed to give up whoopee pies too and yet dear sweet Jesus I can tell you that a whoopee pie has never done anything good for me nothing, at all. Not one blessed thing. Well- that’s not true. They connected me to my father. The gift I always made him so that he would know- despite all we would never say- that I remembered everything and forgave everything and my perfect whoppie pies stuffed with the very best whoppie pie cream you ever tasted were the proof. Whoppie pies are the tie that binds me to my father who I feel so sorry for it pains me. But now-in the past 30 years or so anyway- I’d have to say whoppie pies and the like have given me nothing but the clogged vein and artery I am now stuck with. So being denied of whoppie pies- why does it feel like a death sentence when really it would be more like a life sentence??
A life sentence. That is what Jesus came to give us. I believe that. I heard it today during communion and when I was kneeling there listening I could taste hope. “Bread of heaven, broken for you”. A sliver of hope, a wafer thin taste of glory fading quickly on tongue-tip. Followed by the bitter wine drunk from pottery goblet. “Blood of Christ, shed for you”. Crazy. Crazy. In my head I cannot believe it. In my head it makes no sense at all. In my head I am mortified to be kneeling there so desperate to receive. And yet, in my heart, in my gut, something tries to rise up, tries to find ground, to stand. It is hope. It is faith to believe that I am not called to “make due”. That actually, I was made, given life, to be so much, much more.
I am all about excess. Extremes. And so today I knelt and prayed and promised to give up sugar (except my bedtime hot chocolate), coffee (because it goes with sugar), and CNN and Psychic Detective (ouch). I contemplated NPR too but realized I couldn’t go quite that far. And I decided to add, as my commitment to works of Mercy, to think first of what my husband is feeling before I obsess on what he is making me feel and why and blah, blah, blah. But as soon as I prayed and promised I felt torn in half- crazy with hope and fear. Through the haze of my own little Lenten extravaganza I heard Father Lias saying, “feed on me with your heart and mind” and it was like I heard it on a loud speaker and it got through all the static of my internal drama and I kept saying it over and over. “Feed on me with your heart and mind”. And then Father Lias talked about excess- excess eating, drinking and smoking and how many of us have problems because of taking these good gifts too far. He is giving up drinking for lent which I found pretty damn funny- I’ve never heard a priest give up booze for lent- times have changed since I went to my Christain college, pledged not to drink, smoke or have a boy in my room with the door more than half closed on open dorm night! Father Lias made it seem so natural. That this season of Lent lends itself to the death of old habits and the journey toward newness.
Can I take this season- this Lenten time- to feed in my heart and mind instead of my tongue and stomach? Can I take one day at a time from now until Easter to try and live in the moment, present enough with my own self that I will know that I am a grown woman with children of my own and that a whoppie pie is no longer a conduit to any kind of love it ever even really was. That the lard filled, artery clogging frosting sitting immoveable on top of my Stop and Shop cupcake does not bring back the little girl fantasy of baking in the back right corner of the kitchen with my mother, wearing my little matching home-made apron, throwing back my head, falling against my mother- laughing and licking our spoons and sharing that sweet, sweet place of sameness, of belonging.
In November I was lucky enough to get a warning that I am headed for serious trouble. And as long as I stayed home and did nothing else I could drink my tea and look for my miracles and imagine the changes I would make as soon as- as soon as I got a nap, as soon as my husband did something different, as soon as I stopped working so much. And now it is March. It is Ash Wednesday and soon Easter and then summer and then fall and then November again, and hopefully November again and again and Jesus it is terrifying, but what kind of miracle would it take for me to really break free from the food gods, the false god of sweetness so that I might have all those future Novembers?
I don’t know what kind of miracle it would take and that is what is so frightening and I am not really much of a believer in miracles although when I began this blog I did start to become a believer in everyday miracles and I suppose those are the miracles I will need to make it through Stop and Shop and past Dunkin Donuts and McDonald’s and the bakery and Coffee Time Bake Shop and The Hot Spot at work.
I am generally most motivated by fear. I imagine most people who grew up surrounded by violence are pretty much hard-wired to respond instinctively to even the thought of fear. That is a pretty great instinct and it served me well. My brother- who sadly, lacked that gift of instinct, paid the price. I feel incredibly blessed that I was able, as a child, to head off so much trouble. Unfortunately, in middle age, living in anticipation of, and reaction to fear, is not terribly conducive to creating a happy life for oneself or one’s family. I fake it for them a lot. And I am not nearly so afraid as I used to be of all life’s little suprises. But I am still afraid of myself. Of my own inability to choose health for myself. To really choose life.
It just seems to me today that God is trying to tell me something about Lent and choosing that which could really sustain me, vs. the old crap that in my childhood stood in for real sustenance. There was so much I gave of myself in exchange for what I knew didn’t feel like love but I needed to believe somehow was love of some kind or at least of being wanted and needed and I know that there is some way that there is a huge circle and in that circle is the abuse I withstood, physically and sexually, and the food I ate and the love, love, love I tried to get and give and could often really really feel and taste and then so often I couldn’t. And when you are a child how the hell are you supposed to know what love is supposed to feel like when you are just god damn hungry for it and starving and just want to cry like a baby without a bottle or a binky or anything except there is frosting and there is touching and there is being close and hurt but also loved.
Every year when I get ashes at Christ Church, I somehow end up back in my childhood heart, being hurt again and thinking of food.
This is not the Lenten journey I signed on for. I’m going to take a nap.
1:42:00 PM 
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