ROBERT : Perhaps it is because . . . .

Perhaps it is because of this conversation we are having, but I too was very aware of our not being alone on the Ash Wednesday just past. Reminders of this bit of the rites of faith that we hold in common and that holds us in common just sort of kept drifting in all day.
      The photograph of Joe Biden at a press conference, freshly besmudged forehead and all. A note on a friend’s blog, a note reminding his friends where he was headed to observe the ritual and inviting them to come along, inviting all of us to come along in a way. 

      Standing in line with the others at noon, far more others than I thought might be there frankly, awaiting my turn to be marked and reminded that to dust I shall return. A newspaper photograph of a Catholic priest marking the forehead of a student from a nearby Southern Baptist university. 

      An Ash Wednesday reflection written by a young college professor, a man who has moved in the opposite direction from me along the pew but with whom I am marching on toward Zion nonetheless.
      All of which made think of all of the spots I have called home along this great pew that is the Church, all of the places I have sat for a time on the way to the spot I occupy now. I remembered too the spot on the pew where I first began to mark the Lenten journey at all.
      It also reminded me that this conversation you and I are having here is not the only conversation that is taking place these days between folks who have come from and are headed toward different spots along the pew. And that we are marching along with them as well.

Some of us have begun the fast again, some of us have begun the fast for the first time, all of us have begun the fast together. Grant that in our Lenten fast we may be devoted to You with all our hearts, go the words of an old collect, and united with one another in prayer and holy love.
      And all the people said, So be it.