Some Good News for Ash Wednesday

We can reflect on our lives without embracing an anti-human theology

On the Christian calendar today is Ash Wednesday. Today, all over the world, Christians will gather in formal and informal ways to receive a cross-shaped smudge of ash on their foreheads, known as the “imposition of ashes”. This marks the beginning of the Lenten season that leads us to Easter, and it is a time for reflection and repentance. Unfortunately, it’s also a day when some of the most anti-human understandings of Christian theology are centered and assumed as fact. With that in mind, here are a few thoughts about Ash Wednesday and how to observe the occasion without feeling shame about your humanity.

Ash Wednesday reminds us that our lives are brief and how we live them matters. As we receive the imposition of ashes many of us will hear the words, “Remember you are dust, and to dust you will return.” Yes, that’s a bit of a downer, but it’s also the sobering reality we must all face. Our lives are far too brief, regardless of how long we live. Ash Wednesday calls attention to this fact of life, and invites us to pause and consider how we are living, to quote the poet Mary Oliver, our “one wild and precious life.” It’s so easy in the hectic hustle of life to allow ourselves to set the cruise control, to not think deeply or thoughtfully about what we do and why we do it—about who we are becoming. Ash Wednesday reminds us that the unexamined life is a life that can’t really be lived to the fullest. Perhaps today is a good time for us to ask ourselves…

Who am I?

Who do I want to be?

What kind of legacy and memory do I want to leave behind?

What difference or impact do I want to make in the world?

How can I order my life and priorities to make that possible?

Ash Wednesday also calls us to repentance. If, in the process of reflecting on our lives, we find the gap between who we are and who we want to be is larger than we realized, Ash Wednesday also a good day to commit ourselves to the work of paying attention to who we are becoming and to commit ourselves to being more intentional about how our lives are being lived. In the vocabulary of Christian theology we call that process repentance. I realize this word is fraught with baggage. It has become associated with guilt, shame, and feeling generally awful about ourselves. Those are things we have attached to the word with anti-human theology, but the word itself does not bring such baggage.

In Hebrew, to repent simply means to return. Imagine you’ve been driving along, not paying close attention perhaps, and you suddenly realize that the direction you’re heading doesn’t take you where you want to go. In that case, you could keep heading that direction all the while beating yourself up about it, or you could turn around and go the other way. That is what repentance invites us to do, to turn around and head in the direction of human flourishing.

The Greek word also carries no connotation of guilt or shame. It simply means to change your mind. You were thinking one way—about God, yourself, your neighbor, or your enemy—and you make the decision to think differently. So, this Ash Wednesday maybe we take a moment and reflect…

Is there something about which or someone about whom I need to think differently?

When people on the internet tell me that I need to repent, I often respond with something like, “I do! I am! Everyday I find something to change my mind about, something that I feel the Spirit nudging me to rethink or release or embrace. That’s how I’ve ended up here, and I know I am not finished!”

Ash Wednesday doesn’t have to center bad theology. Too much Christian theology sees our humanity as something broken that needs to be overcome or escaped. Yet, in the tradition of Scripture, God calls humanity good. In process, of course. Lots to learn, absolutely. We have plenty of room for growth. At the same time, rather than being a punchline for our failures, being human is a good gift, one that we should not feel ashamed of or guilty about. I have come to believe that the problem is not that we are living fully into our good humanity, but that many times we end up living beneath it. Our hate, bigotry, and violence happen when we live and behave in ways that are subhuman, beneath the possibility and goodness God imbedded and infused into us. On Ash Wednesday we can repent of the ways in which we have not lived into our good humanity without dragging our species through the mud. Guilt and shame do not aid our journey toward living in fully, beautifully human ways. Guilt and shame actually short circuit and derail healthy repentance.

Here’s some good news for Ash Wednesday, friends.
You are beautifully and wonderfully made.
You belong and you are beloved.
You are human, and that is a gift.
Life may be a vapor, but we can choose to live in ways that cause the goodness and vitality of our lives to out live us.

Ash Wednesday calls our attention to that important work.