That’s not a question you will normally hear. It’s not like “How was your Christmas?” – which everybody celebrates whether they are secular or Christian. Many may not even take note of Ash Wednesday until reminded when seeing a random person with a smudge on their forehead – “oh yeah, it’s the beginning of Lent”. Ash Wednesday was yesterday.
The spirit of Ash Wednesday is quiet and solemn. Lent does
not have an auspicious beginning – it is to remember that we will all someday
return to the earth as dirt or ashes – a reminder of our vulnerability and
mortality.
My day began with an early appointment to get a root canal.
The procedure was not overly stressful – until the endodontist said, “Oh Oh - there’s
another canal in there – normally a tooth has two and these were treated according
to plan, but to find the third (there’s a 1% chance of a tooth having a third)
took more grinding and digging around without success. Don’t worry, he said, there’s another way to
get to it, meaning on another day for surgery from the other end with “just a
little incision of the gum” – only another $1,000.
When I got home and started setting out breakfast Judy said
“Ash Wednesday is a FAST day” – oh yeah, now I remember. Lent sort of creeps up on us. The three disciplines of Lent are Fasting,
Prayer, and Alms giving. I had given
some thought to what would be my fast this year – abstention from
desserts.
The thing that went through my mind and prayers throughout
the day was taking place in Florida. But
it started for our granddaughter, Leslie and her husband Fil, very early in the
morning in Chicago. They were flying to
Florida for a funeral and would come back the same night. Here’s the story:
Fil comes from a Russian Jewish family; a very large and
complicated extended family who mostly settled in Chicago in the ‘90s. Some of the relatives had migrated to Florida
and an unconceivable tragedy struck that family last week. Larisa, related through marriage to Fil’s
family, lived in a condo in Fort Lauderdale with her son Ben, age 18, and
daughter Eve, in her early twenties. An ex-boyfriend,
likely estranged and unimaginably angry, came to that apartment last Tuesday and
shot Larisa and Ben, killing them both. Eve was not at home. This killer then drove over two hours to
Sarasota where Larisa’s brother, mother and stepfather lived and went into
their house, killing them plus a good neighbor who was just checking on them
when he heard gun shots. The shooter
then took his own life.
Leslie and Fil grieved, cried, hugged and consoled many at
the funeral for all five of the family yesterday. Leslie said it was beautiful and necessary to
come together. My prayers were with them
from afar.
Last night at our Ash Wednesday worship Pastor Brad said
that in this service we were reminded forcefully of the words of the
funeral/burial committal service at the death of a loved one: “earth to
earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust”.
The closest parallel in Jewish liturgy is the solemn “Day of Atonement”;
waiting to receive, experience and give forgiveness. Ashes are a rich symbol;
rooted in ancient customs and practices of grief and sorrow, cleansing and
renewal – a symbol of God’s judgement upon sin, a sign of our human frailty and
mortality, our humiliations and broken condition, and our need and repentance.
As a Christian I was reminded of the God’s forgiveness daily
as we heard it announced at the Lord’s table last night after we received the
imposition of ashes. As these Jewish
brothers and sisters grieve and experience deep lamentations and in their own
struggles with forgiveness and trying to make some sense of this tragedy, I
pray God’s all-encompassing love will surround them now, and in the days to
come.
This was another mass shooting in America, one that was only
covered in the local news. We would not
have known about it except for the family connection. But that horrendous tragedy will remain etched
in the minds of many in the extended Velgach family for generations. Lord, have mercy.
