How Ashes Might Cure Some of Our Depression: Reflections on Lent

I have not been attending liturgical churches for long.

Last week was my very first Ash Wednesday. I was excited to receive the smear of ash on my forehead — I’ve always been a sucker for rituals.

I was not prepared, however, for just how healing the service would be.

It shouldn’t have been healing. It should have been weird. It should have even been offensive. I’ve been told my whole life to be positive. So who were all these earnest-faced people, kneeling down, wearing black and gray?

Who were these people, murmuring in approval, when told they were dust?

We heard it over and over, as we knelt to receive ashes.

Remember that you are dust.

Ouch, says our 21st-century-subconscious. How dare you.

Dust is medieval. We shouldn’t have to hear about it anymore.

In the middle ages, people were obsessed with death. The Black Plague can do that to a generation. Everything about their art and culture was skulls and worms and rot. Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.

I feel like, as a modern culture, we have the opposite problem.