Smudge head

Posted on March 5, 2014 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

It is Ash Wednesday and I haven’t seen anybody with a smudge on their heads.

Now, this is the South. There aren’t a lot of people who observe Ash Wednesday. Most people, if they go to church at all other than at Easter and Christmas, don’t do Ash Wednesday. The most common denominations are Baptist or Presbyterian, and they don’t play this game.

Catholics certainly do, and Episcopalians. Many Methodists do it as well. Lutherans for sure. But in the South, smudges are rare.

So last year I felt like I was in a special club when I’d see someone wearing a dirty grey cross on their forehead. It was weirdly cool. We were all Christian, sure, but we were part of a different batch of Christian who did this odd thing. Not better, just different. It was kind of like being in a club within a club. Maybe it was like being a 33rd degree Mason, versus a 32nd degree. We were all “in,” but some of us got the extra special handshake.

Last year I felt really strange, sticking out like that. I worked my normal shift at the library and had to be out amongst the public. Part of the game is that you aren’t supposed to wash it off. It is like wearing a cross around your neck. It is a visible sign of your faith. The irony is that one of the readings at the service is always about not making your piety known before others. Jesus said a lot about that.

Matthew 6:1
“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

Matthew 6:5
“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.

Matthew 6:16-18
16″Whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 17″But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face 18so that your fasting will not be noticed by men, but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

So maybe we are doing it wrong. Jesus tells us not to do it, and yet we do it. Jesus didn’t tell us to do any of this ritual, either. There is a lot we do in church that Jesus didn’t tell us to do. But I hadn’t realized this then. Then, I was doing it because it was something my church did.

It was strange to have a mark on my head, out in public. I’d wear a straight face and pretend like this Thing wasn’t on my head. It is hard to miss. Now, some people understood, but not most. Some just pretended it wasn’t there. Some didn’t even notice. Some would gesture towards their own foreheads and say “You have a bit of dirt on your head” and I’d have to explain it to them. Some would look at me, think about it, and say “It’s a religious thing, right?”

Sometimes they would say “Happy Lent” and I’d not know what to say. It isn’t a happy thing, on purpose.

In a way, it was a good way to tell them about the whole idea. I think that making Christianity a participatory event is a good thing, in more than one way. I think that people certainly need to live like Jesus did and treat others like he treated them. But sometimes, getting there can be hard. So a little bit of playacting is necessary. It can get things going.

But nobody that I saw was wearing ashes this year. Maybe they are all doing it right now. It is the evening, and it is common for some churches to have this service then. Making time to go to church before work or in the middle of the day is hard. Plus, not all churches have the staff necessary to have multiple services. If you don’t have enough staff, it is easier to have just one service.

Plus, if you have the service at night, you don’t have the dilemma – wash it off, or not. Nobody is going to see it except your family, and they all have one too.

But I kind of liked having the cross on my head last year. I’d have a weird kind of bond with people – people I didn’t know played the same game I did. A lady looked at it and it helped her – she said “Oh, that’s today!” and realized she needed to go to church.

While that isn’t the best way to enter Lent, it certainly is a way.

Ideally, we enter our Christian life awake, and prepared. Ideally, we plan for it. Ideally, it isn’t a rush or something we forgot.

But then sometimes God comes to us right where we are and surprises us, just like Jacob in the desert.

Genesis 28:11-17
11 When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. 12 He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 There above it stood the LORD, and he said: “I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. 14 Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. 15 I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” 16 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” 17 He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”

May we all be ready to receive the Guest that is God, at all times. May we all be marked with the Cross in our hearts, and not just on our foreheads.

Ashes to Ashes

Posted on March 2, 2014 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I was looking around for a church that did Ash Wednesday services. It is coming up. I go into work in the afternoon that day, so I need one that is early enough that it won’t affect my schedule. I can’t go to an evening service because I’m closing that day.

I looked around and there are very few options nearby. Not every church has an Ash Wednesday imposition of ashes service, so I’m already limited there. I could go to the nearby Catholic church, but I’d have to fake being Catholic. While that is easy to do from my many years of Episcopal worship, I resent that I’d have to. I resent the whole idea of exclusion in church. Jesus didn’t make any such rules.

Jesus wasn’t Catholic. Jesus wasn’t a member of any denomination. Any denomination that says they have a lock on the Word hasn’t read it right. Any denomination that says only members can participate hasn’t gotten the message that we are all members of the same Body. There aren’t any limits. We are all in.

I could go to an Episcopal service at another church. I’m not stepping foot inside the one I used to go to. But even if I did go to another parish, I feel that it would get back to the priest at my former parish. I don’t feel like giving her the satisfaction of feeling like I’ve caved in.

Then I thought I could go to a Lutheran or Methodist church, but by this point I realized something. I really just don’t like the idea church as it exists right now. I don’t like that it seems more social club than social justice. I don’t like the idea of the division of lay and ordained. I reject that whole idea as not being of Jesus.

Then I thought that I could do this myself, at home. I’ve got the palms from Palm Sunday from last year. I could burn them on Shrove Tuesday (which is also Mardi Gras). This is what is traditionally done. The very same palms that we waved to welcome Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday are kept for a year. They are dry and brittle by that point – and perfect for burning. They are burned in a fire and the ashes are sifted and mixed with a little anointing oil. It is then applied to the forehead with the words “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Easy. I can do this. I have all the ingredients.

And then I really woke up. What am I trying to do? What do I expect to gain from this?

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent. It is the beginning of forty days of penance and sacrifice. It is in memory of the forty days that Jesus spent in the desert being tempted by the Devil. During all that time he gave up eating and drinking. During this time, many liturgical Christians traditionally just give up meat, at least on Fridays. Some go all the way and give up oil and eggs and a slew of other things in addition to meat, for the whole time.

Some people give up more than that. Some people will give up drinking, or chocolate, or playing video games. The idea is to give up something that you like. The idea is to then make space for something that you’ve not made space for. The idea is to make space for Jesus.

In Lent, we give up so we can take on. In Lent, we gain far more than we give up.

But the unspoken message of it is sacrifice, and in a way, that we are being punished. The unspoken message is that we aren’t worthy of God’s love unless we give up something. The unspoken message is that God has to be appeased in order for us to get anywhere, or anything.

And that isn’t the message of Jesus.

So I’m skipping Ash Wednesday. I’m skipping Lent. I’m skipping the whole idea of it, because the message of Jesus isn’t about making myself lesser than what I am in order to be considered worthy.

Jesus says I’m worthy just like I am, and that is good enough for me.

Crumbs

Posted on February 18, 2014 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I’m amused/perplexed/concerned by the thing that my old church did after communion. All heavily liturgical churches do this.

Anything that was consecrated had to be consumed, locked away, or specially disposed of. Drops of wine and specks of communion wafers had to be dealt with.

After everybody had taken communion, the chalice bearers would do a little pre-cleaning while still at the altar. At this church they did it with their backs to everybody, in part to not be in the way of the priest and the crucifer who took on a quasi-deacon role. Of course, it didn’t matter that their backs were to everybody. They were standing at least 20 feet away from the first pew, and nobody sits in the first pew anyway. So it wasn’t like what we were doing was secret, but in a way it was.

Yes. I said we. I was one of them. I became a chalice bearer in part because I wanted to know what was going on up there. I love ritual. I love symbolism. And I love being on the inside of things. For some things you have to be “in” to get all the layers of meaning.

Plus, they were chronically short on chalice bearers. I was grateful to have the opportunity to learn as much as I did so early in my membership. It was so big at my old church in Chattanooga that there was no way I could have made a place for myself up at the altar. They were full up on helpers.

But I should have thought about the fact that they had so few people who were able or willing to do that task at this church. I feel it speaks to a certain lack of activity, or a certain fear of it.

Plenty people don’t feel “worthy” to be a chalice bearer. Some don’t even feel worthy enough to touch the chalice to help the chalice bearer guide it to their lips so they don’t get wine spilled on them. Some don’t even feel worthy enough to take communion at all. This is worth a whole post on its own.

But some don’t even want to participate, not really. They want to show up and get a sticker for being there and go home. They’ve done their duty for the week.

Back to the clean up part. The chalice bearers drink whatever is left of the wine in their chalices. Then they pour a little water in the chalice and a little water on the paten (the plate for the wafers). They swish it around to catch any crumbs. Then they pour the water from the paten into the chalice, swirl it around, and drink it too. They will use their linen napkins (called purificators) to wipe up anything left and put them in the chalice.

There is a special order to how the whole assembly is put together to be put back on the shelf for the altar guild.

The next place it goes is to the piscina.

The piscina is a special place that the communion ware goes after the chalice bearers are done with their bit. It is a special sink that is not connected to the sewer system. The drain goes directly to the ground. This way no unintentional bits of consecrated elements go into the sewer system.

To me, this seems all a bit excessive. Even if a crumb is dropped, it has to be eaten or disposed of outside on the ground. It can’t be vacuumed up. It can’t be stepped on and ground into the carpet.

Funny how the ministers care so much about the crumbs and they miss the people who are leaving.

I’m still a bit angry about the fact that I’ve been gone from that church for almost a year now and it was as if I never went. I went almost every Sunday for three years. I was up front serving, as a chalice bearer, a lector, or an acolyte – or all three, for the majority of that time. I wasn’t just a pew warmer. I was up and working. I was visible. My name was in the order of service. Because I was part of the deacon discernment process I was even being prayed for by name as part of the Prayers of the People.

But none of that means anything. I left, and it is just like I went off the radar and nobody noticed. I’ve seen a few people from that church in the library or at the Y and they act like nothing has happened. It is all very weird. It makes me think that I made the right decision – that they were all asleep all along.

Sure, some are awake and present. Some asked what was going on. Some took the time to listen to my concerns. But not nearly the amount I would expect, given my activity level. Surely some of them would wonder if I was OK. Surely some of them would call or email to see if I was sick, or hurt. The fact that a handful of people cared enough to talk with me about why I left just lets me know I was in the wrong place all along.

I feel like I wasted three years of my life. And I’m wary of committing to another church organization, of any form. I’m wary of getting sucked in only to get spit out all over again.

I’m wary of finding out once again that the crumbs are more important than the people.