Sackcloth and Ashes

If ever there has been a time for sackcloth and ashes, it is now.  I hate downer messages, but this has to be said.  The political bonfires and infernos across the globe that are eviscerating security, self-determination, and life itself; add to these acts of violence, the failures of airplanes to fly safely; of parents to restrain themselves from supplying their mentally-ill children with weapons; of elected officials to act in the interest of the commons, of adolescent men to keep their pants zipped and refuse the exploitation of young women.

Sackcloth and ashes was the response of the citizens of Nineveh to the warnings uttered by Jonah, (of belly-of-the-whale-fame).  Having waken up to their wasteful and sloppy and exploitative ways, they responded with these acts of humiliation and repentance.  Later, Job resorts to covering himself in ashes when his children, fields, and wealth have been stripped from him.  Nineveh’s response was a collective one; Job’s an individual expression of grief and despair.

On Ash Wednesday, which falls next week on Valentine’s Day, Christians will have a thumb-print of ashes planted on their foreheads in the shape of a cross.  Submitting to this ritual is a kind of acknowledgement of both our individual and collective complicities, and of our  contingency.  We will all go to dust.

But what we do between now and then is the question.  It’s the question Jonah was asking.  It’s the question each of us asks perhaps once a week (if not once a day).  Am I living my true calling?  Have I become suffocated by the lifestyle, or career, or consumption patterns I have created?  Is resentment or fear or unresolved trauma leading me through my days numb, or blind with obsession?

At least once a year, it’s probably not a bad idea to acknowledge that, yes, it might be time for a little sackcloth and ashes for ourselves.  Ash, after all, is a stellar material for cleaning glass.  It’s slight abrasive quality works to remove grime.  There are theories that ash inactivates viruses and harmful bacteria.  Metaphors, of course, for our smudged and sooty inner mirrors.

Take a look at your fireplace.  Or a spent candle wick.  Perhaps the sources of unlikely blessing are as close as your breath.  What wants to be burned away, rubbed clean, renewed in you this Lent?

Comments are welcome.

Namaste.