(no) ashes...

no ash wednesday for me this year...for two main reasons:
1. protestants here don't DO liturgical seasons or anything like that--it's too orthodox. and the orthodox don't have ash wednesday because they started the Great Lent Fast on Monday--55 days before Easter.
2. The service at the Catholic church in Coptic Cairo was too close to the time of my English Class at the Coptic Cathedral.

I miss it, though. I think this year, particularly with the death of my mom and the scattering of her ashes along the Oregon Coast, I would have had a different kind of Ash Wednesday. I can't articulate precisely what would have been different, but I'm sure many of you can guess or intuit some of the things...ashes having different meaning, mortality being nearer, darkness being pretty all-consuming and yet maybe a glimmer of hope through it all....anyway, I guess I just articulated (badly) some of the things i claimed not to be able to articulate. :-p

but i'll never know if it would have been different, because now it's past. and while i had a GREAT discussion in my English class, I was wishing to be at church. oh well....

my church sends out daily devotions, and the devotion for Ash Wednesday was particularly good, I thought. check it out.

i miss the ashes. but i guess there's next year....insha'allah.