Hearts and Ashes

I must confess that I love unexpected connections. I like to ponder how two possibly unrelated things can have meaning when they are set next to one another. That is why I am most nurtured by metaphor and symbol. I guess you can say I am enamored with the word my mentor in liturgical theology uses prolifically: juxtaposition.

Over these two days, I wonder if you, too, are pondering  a very interesting juxtaposition: Ash Wednesday followed immediately by Valentine's Day. The one is largely sacred; the other secular, but those lines are blurry, as the history of Valentine's Day has its root in Christianity as well as in Roman tradition. 

On Tuesday, you may have observed Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday/ Shrove Tuesday with fried dough, sugar and other goodies. You wake up to Ash Wednesday. Perhaps you are set to begin a Lenten discipline, giving something up (like fried dough or sugar or Facebook).or adding something (more prayer time, more vegetables, more charitable giving). Then, as if to test you right away, comes Valentine's Day: a day of sweetness, of giving chocolate or other treats. If you gave up sweet treats, do you give in and make an exception because it's a holiday? 

To keep the food theme going a little longer, my gut reaction to this juxtaposition was it's opposition: Ash Wednesday with it's solemnity, starkness. You are dust, we will all return to dust.  In worship, we sang mostly unaccompanied. We experienced silence. It is a day of depth, of pondering mystery. Tomorrow is to be a day of joy and love, serenading and romance. It will be celebrated not in worship but at schools, restaurants, homes, workplaces. And for many, it is simply a Hallmark holiday, a day to give into cultural expectations (better get the card, the flowers, make the reservations).

But like a good metaphor, two things that seem opposed can have unexpected, surprising meaning. Here is the line that revealed this for me, from the Gospel reading on Ash Wednesday:

Where your treasure is, your heart will be also. (Matt. 6:21)

Lent does not shy away from love at all, nor does Ash Wednesday. It ushers us into a deep love and perhaps Valentine's Day can remind us of Lent's loveliness. Hymnwriter Sylvia Dunstan puts it this way:

Divine eternal lover, you meet us on the road; 
We wait for lands of promise where milk and honey flow, 
but waiting not for places, you meet us all around. 
Our covenant is written on roads, as faith is found.
                                                    "Bless Now O God the Journey" Stanza 3

So perhaps Valentine's Day can be one of those roads where we notice that Divine Love finds us and we share this love with others. For those of us that observed Ash Wednesday with our children, we can use that as a springboard to talk about where our treasure is and where our heart is: is it in those piles of candy (a blog post for another day!) the pencils, even the cute paper valentines? Or is the act of sending the valentines one of those rituals that calls us deeper, not unlike the ritual of the ashes that calls us to acknowledge that Divine Love finds is in the dusty and dirty as well as the sweet and sparkly?

Blessed Ash Wednesday. Happy Valentine's Day.