Ash all round...

Today is Ash Wednesday and I have never had so many ashings to do on one day...

I started the day with a little ash factory at the front of the house. There I was sitting on my little green stool with an old sauce pan in my hand, a bin of recycled paper at my side and a few palm crosses blowing in the wind. Goodness knows what the passers by thought, but I produced three small pots of ash...

Pot One: William Sutton House. Took my first pot of ash to the residents for their monthly communion. I then took this pot to Oakhill STC for Yvonne to use with the trainees.

I went for a run (3 miles in 28minutes 10 seconds) and had lunch with Jeremy Trigg...

Pot Two: Taste and See at Christ the Sower. I took the second pot to Christ the Sower, but the plan was to burn some palm crosses with the children. Pot Two was technically a backup. It took some time to get the crosses going, but we did, so pot two finished with more in it than it started with...

Taste and See for Ash Wednesday went well. We made Ash in the courtyard, then there was a choice of activities. The adults liked the quite meditation (lying down) and the children liked the black and white craft activities - particularly the play dough (most of them twigged the link with ash...)
As usual, it was great to see the children really enjoy church - and the grown-ups get something out of the experience too... The only problem is the set-up time. This "fresh expressions" stuff is all very well, but it would be nice to have an army of helpers... Although of course, since a true fresh expression is tragetted at those who don't attend church, I suppose an army of bright eyed enthusiastic church members would be counter productive...

Pot Three: Evening Service. There was still some left from pot one, since Yvonne hadn't used it. Pot two had been filled up. So there were three pots of ash on the table at St Giles this evening. They'd all been on very different journeys but ended up together for the final event - Holy Communion with the Imposition of Ashes at St Giles.
There was a good mixed turnout. Liz was assisting and I preached.
I commented on the way we sometimes seem to do what the Bible tells us not to. We call ministers "Father" even though that's the one thing Jesus tells us not to call people - and we put ash on our heads when Jesus tells us to do our "acts of righteousness" in secret.
The point of lent is to do things that help us grow. We take on spiritual disciplines, but these disciplines are designed to open us up to the grace of God - not to force us to be better. It is right therefore that they are private actions - since they will be different for each of us...
So what about the ash. We don't want to make a big deal about what we do, but the carbon we put on our heads can still make a point. Carbon is the stuff ot life and yet we are now burning it as we damage the earth for our own ends... Perhaps the ash on our heads is a call to change rather than a claim to be more holy. A personal carbon footprint to remind us that the whole world needs to repent...