I have always had an odd relationship with Ash Wednesday. It always felt like an interruption, an inconvenience. Lent itself didn’t mean a lot other than it was time to give something up that I would indulge in the moment Easter came. It was all for show; it felt like another thing to add to the never-ending to-do list.
Over time, my relationship with Ash Wednesday shifted. My understanding of Lent went deeper than the concept of giving something up just because. It didn’t happen overnight. It didn’t happen because of some crisis or an ah-ha moment. It happened when I stopped seeing it as just a thing to do. I began to view it as an invitation.
An invitation to pay attention. An invitation to slow down. An invitation to be honest. An invitation to sit in the doubts and fears.
That invitation is a hard one to say yes to. It forces us to be uncomfortable. It forces us to step outside of ourselves. It forces us to do the hard things.
This invitation starts in a moment of vulnerability. This invitation starts with ashes, adorned on our forehead in the shape of the cross. A visible reminder that we are finite beings. Wandering lost in the wilderness. Seeking something deeper than the temporary fixes we rely on.
But this invitation is deeper. This invitation, the cross on our foreheads, is a reminder that while we are dust, we are deeply loved.
This year, this invitation feels heavier.
This invitation comes at a time when we are feeling the weight of the world. We are in a time and place where the headlines are relentless. We are witnessing the dignity of our neighbors, especially our transgender, disabled, and immigrant neighbors, being stripped away. It’s not something that is just happening in some faraway place. It is happening in our communities, in our neighborhoods, in our church. It is not something that is abstract; it is personal, it is embodied, and it is exhausting.
This invitation doesn’t ask us to pretend otherwise. This invitation isn’t asking us to ignore what is happening to our neighbor. This invitation isn’t asking us to be okay with what is happening.
Instead, this invitation is inviting us to name what is real. To name that what is happening is not okay. To name the fear, the anger, the grief, the weariness without rushing past them.
This invitation doesn’t stop there.
This invitation invites us to claim who we are. The ashes in the shape of the cross is intentional, it reminds us that our identity is not determined by governments or by public approval. It reminds us that our dignity is not tied to systems that try to break us down. Those ashes are a reminder that we are claimed by the one who creates us. Claimed by the one who knows us better than we know ourselves. Claimed by the one who does not turn away from our humanity. We are claimed by God. We are called beloved.
Grounded in grace, we are being invited to trust that the identity we receive in the ashes, in the cross, is enough.
It is from that place that we are being invited into a season of going deeper. A season that forces us to sit in the unpleasant realities of being human. A season that forces us to pause, to breathe, and to reorient ourselves.
We are not being invited to be perfect, to ignore what is happening around the world. We are being invited to be honest, to be present, to be aware. We are being invited to trust in the cross, to trust in the dust.
Lent is an invitation to go deeper.
Ash Wednesday is an invitation to pause. To witness to where God’s love is breaking through.
We are being invited to live into the identity that God gives us in a deeper way.
We are being invited to trust that the dust is enough. To trust that ordinary things and broken people are enough. To trust that we are enough.
We are being invited to step out of ourselves and be open to where God is calling us.
Are you open to accepting this invitation?
