Ash Wednesday 2023

Sound travels in odd ways in this seminary apartment building.  Somewhere, someone has ambient music playing, the kind you might play if you were trying to block out other noise so that you could sleep.  I hear about every third note, and I find it oddly soothing, so much so that I haven't shifted to my usual morning routine of listening to episodes of various NPR shows that I've missed or the few podcasts that I follow.  I've heard the ambient music before, usually in the middle of the night, and it has lulled me back to sleep then.

Another odd fact of life in this apartment building this term:  we have had weekly water outages.  We get announcements in advance, and it's only for a few hours.  Yesterday was one of those outages, and so I took my shower very early, so I could go to the 7 a.m.  Ash Wednesday service at nearby St. Columba's Episcopal church.

I had planned to go to the grocery store after the service, but it occurred to me that I could go before the service if I left right after I finished the morning watch session that I do every morning for my Florida church.  And so, I did.  I was on foot, and I felt perfectly safe, walking to Wegmans just before 6 a.m.  Lots of folks were walking, but almost all of them were construction workers, walking with their hard hats in hand.  As I left Wegmans and walked up the hill to St. Columba's, I stopped to take some pictures of the sunrise:

I got to St. Columba's early, about 6:43 a.m. for the 7 a.m. service, but the church was open.  I went in and took a few pictures before the service started as people were getting ready:

I was happy that a female priest presided.  As we went up for ashes, I tried to determine who filled the pews:  mostly white-skinned women like me, at the far side of midlife or the early part of their older years, most with sensible hair cuts, most in natural shades of gray.  There was one woman who presented as African-American, one younger woman with pink and green hair pulled back in a ponytail, another even younger woman in an American Ballet Theatre sweatshirt who was there with an older man (they seemed to be father-daughter, but who can be sure?).  There were a few men, but mostly females.

The website said it would be a brief service with imposition of ashes and eucharist.  I was a little surprised to see a bulletin:

The service was brief in that we didn't have music, but otherwise, we covered everything that I want in an Ash Wednesday service.  In fact, I found Isaiah 58: 1-12 so moving that I've decided to do my first sermon for Women and the Preaching Life class on the last verses of the text.

After the service, I took some pictures.  Some of the parishioners looked at me as they passed by me, and I wondered if they thought I was strange for taking pictures or if they thought they knew me but couldn't place me.

I returned to my seminary apartment full of purpose and made this Facebook post:  "As many of you know, I'm an early bird, so this morning, I headed off to Saint Columba's Episcopal Church for their first Ash Wednesday service at 7 a.m., and on my way, I stopped by Wegman's to get a few things. I did grocery shopping, got a longish walk done, and got a visceral reminder of my mortality, all before 8 in the morning!"

I had planned to spend the day doing lots of writing for seminary classes, but I did none of it.  I did some of the work that needs to be done before writing:  thinking about the assignment for my Queer Theology class, reading the books that I'll respond to in a discussion post for World Religions class.  I doublechecked my calendars to make sure I wasn't missing anything.

I got other work done.  I called my former employer, the one who severed me from my last full-time job, and asked them to provide me my W2.  It wasn't as awkward as I thought it might be, and I did get the document.  Let me remember how much time it took, the better part of an hour:  I did internet searching, made a phone call, waited on hold, got transferred, waited on hold, got transferred back, took down info about e-mail addresses, sent an e-mail, got a phone call, took down info, got re-registered for Viventium (the site that securely stores all this paperwork), and finally, I got my W2.

I got other writing done, primarily writing in my journal.  I made a casserole that has leftovers that means I won't have to cook later.  I went for a late afternoon walk.  I had a video call with my spouse who is in North Carolina.

I thought about trying to get seminary writing done in the early evening, but I decided that I would do a better job if I waited.  It was too early to go to bed, so I watched a few episodes of The Chosen, which was a much better show than I thought it would be.  I felt slightly less guilty about taking the night off because the show is about Jesus.  I did a lot of sewing on what I'm calling my small pieces collection:

These are the pieces in progress--the double bed in the guest room is covered with finished pieces.  I'm taking advantage of this time of living by myself, keeping supplies close by and every surface draped with fabric:

I won't always have this luxury:  time to write, time to study, time to sew.  I am profoundly grateful.