it's Lent now

 Did the thing yesterday evening. My previous experience  - such as it was, as a college student - with the tradition was that getting your ashes was a first-thing-of-the-day and you wore them during the day as a symbol. 

The church I belonged to at the time (a Disciples church, but congregations vary a lot) didn't do it, but I remember seeing my classmates who were Catholic with their ashes.

And yeah, maybe there's a tiny performative aspect for some people, which is negated by our habit of doing it as an early-evening service and then most people go home.

 the church secretary and I distributed the ashes. It's a fairly intense moment, or I find it so - especially now having lost as many people as I have, and given that two of my fellow congregants had unpleasant health scares (one was cancer, one was apparently heart issues) this winter.

And whispering "From dust you came, and to dust you shall return, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen" doesn't lose its impact the more times you do it.

(It was hard, emotionally, marking the forehead of the man who just came through a cancer scare; that was the one that ALMOST had me tearing up)

Both the secretary and I were shaky voiced when at the end we turned to each other, and said the words, and put the ashes on each other's foreheads (And yes, I think someone else doing the marking - as is traditional - carries some emotional weight, at least for a person like me who doesn't frequently get touched during the week). And yes, she used a rather heavy hand. My hands are so dry I had a hard time getting enough ashes on people's foreheads. 

It was also harder because I learned that the ex-son-in-law of a friend (her daughter and he are divorced, but fairly amicably) is experiencing multi-system failure and apparently won't make it without a liver transplant. This came on quite suddenly; he was not a drinker or a drug user so I suspect it might have been an infection. But it's pretty terrible - the suddenness, and he has two young-teen children who live with their mother but who are very fond of him. (My friend did say she was keeping a bit of the worst from them right now; the hope is maybe there will be a donor).

 

Tomorrow is another busy day. I am up to the heel flap on the "cosmic dust" socks now. We have our second candidate in tomorrow I expect it'll be late when I get home then. 

I didn't come up with a good Lent practice for this year. I had thought, "Don't use cusswords when you're alone and something upsets you" (I almost NEVER say them IN FRONT OF PEOPLE but I sometimes do when alone, but that ship sailed this morning when I had problems with the computer in my office)

I also admit, I joked on Bluesky about giving up my expectation that things in the country would get better at some point. But that's not really keeping in the spirit.

I haven't bought yarn, but again - I'd like to leave it open to be able to do so for my birthday. SO I don't know.