Why we'll administer ashes on campus today...

Yesterday a friend and colleague published a pretty compelling blog post arguing against the increasingly popular Ashes to Go movement where clergy people administer ashes to passersby on street corners and bus stations in a momentary exchange.

While I've offered ashes publicly each year that I've been doing this whole ordained pastor thing, the questions Tim raises have haunted me. I've wondered whether we were cheapening the ritual. Tim's right, the repentant Lenten movement does take time. It takes time to move from death into life. Truly, it is essential that we hear that we are dust and to dust we shall return; that our confession is also communal. 

Yet, it is the communal nature of our Ash Wednesday confession of brokenness and hope that will lead me (and my Episcopal colleague) onto campus later today. 

I suspect that my context and Tim's have some significant differences. Perhaps one of those differences is that my identity as a religious official does not lend me much credibility when I step onto campus. When I position myself to distribute ashes the masses will not rush to receive the sign of the cross. There will be very few members of the campus community for whom this opportunity will bring the relief of conveniently fulfilling one's religious obligations. 

Truth be told, very few people will stop at all. Last year in two hours on a street corner, I recall only around ten students who wished to receive the sign of the cross. Some passersby will observe me with curiosity, some disdain, some complete obliviousness. 

It's a weird experience for me, but I suspect it's an uncomfortable experience for students as well. Last year, with traffic slow on my corner of campus I began walking through academic buildings during class changes. I wore a black cassock, which made me feel like one of Harry Potter's death eaters floating through a sea of students who looked at me like I was more likely connected to Draco Malfoy than to Jesus Christ. Like most of our public theological acts on campus this act has a high degree of weirdness and a low degree of participation.

That's why I think it's important to offer ashes on campus to thousands of students, faculty, and staff who aren't particularly interested. It is my hope that today we might be the ashen cross on the forehead of our community. That we might be that smudge that surprises us with each look in the mirror. It's my hope that our presence might be just the kind of awkward and awakening proclamation that will help pull our community and world into the hope that is found only in death. 

peace,
z