Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent, a perfect time for spiritual growth, a natural time for prayer. But let me be honest with you: I\u2019ve resisted going to our church\u2019s Ash Wednesday service for years.<\/p>\n
Quite frankly, it sounded too penitential to me. Not that I mind getting honest in prayer. I try not to edit my thoughts when I\u2019m talking to God. I mean, he knows what I\u2019m thinking, so why should I hide anything? And of course, I ask for forgiveness every time I say the Lord\u2019s Prayer. It\u2019s there in the text. \u201cForgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.\u201d (Or \u201cdebts\u201d or \u201ctrespasses.\u201d)<\/p>\n
But a whole service dedicated to contrition? I feared it would be too dreary.<\/p>\n
Finally after years\u2013and I\u2019m serious, it\u2019s really been years\u2013I went to the Ash Wednesday service for the first time last year. I felt pretty awkward, as though it was the first time I\u2019d ever stepped in a church. What were they going to make me do? What was I going to say? Would anyone notice if I slipped out?<\/p>\n
As a congregation we prayed all of Psalm 51, which seemed OK. It has one of my favorite lines of prayer: \u201cCreate in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me\u201d (verse 11). I\u2019ve prayed that one a lot. Renewal is something that I look for daily.<\/p>\n
But then we went into a long litany, praying aloud, confessing our sins, and our pastor\u2019s guiding words made me think more carefully about my failings and our wrongs than I had ever done. Our anger, self-indulgence, negligence, prejudice, pride, hypocrisy and one of the phrases from the Book of Common Prayer that really stuck, \u201cour intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Halfway through it stopped being a chore and felt like a blessing. Like a good talk with a friend when you finally open up about something that\u2019s been on your conscience for too long. I\u2019d hear a phrase and take an internal inventory, then let go of a nagging guilt, sometimes one I didn\u2019t even know was there. It was liberating. To feel God’s forgiveness of everything. Everything.<\/p>\n