With a smudge of burned palm branch ash on my forehead that--since I couldn't see it--I'd forgotten about, I visited the local dollar store on the way home from church. The sermon dealt with--partly--doing our acts of penitence in private. Yet here I was (inadvertently) flaunting (a Matthewean 'no-no') such an act in public. When I realized it--at checkout--I fiercely rubbed the oily, ashy bit off my forehead, laughing with the checker. "I figured that's where you'd been," she said.
Is the fact that I forgot the ashes of the supposedly meaningful, emotional act of contrition in such a short time telling on me? Is it my habit to breeze through worship each week as a choir member (and in two Sundays as the interim organist/ director) immediately forgetting the symbolism, the strength that corporate worship inspires, the prayers for the ill, the bereaved, the hurting--am I really so jaded with age and (ahem) experience that my acts of piety are JUST and ONLY that? God forbid!
I doubt I will "give up" or abstain from my eating habits, but perhaps I can guard my tongue a little better. How about a quarter in the "swear" jar for each infraction? Or a dollar? Plus, extra prayers for patience.
How will you observe Lent?
~~Pat Laster dba lovepat press c 2011
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