Hugh's Views

This morning, I, like millions of Christian around the world, stood in front of a priest or minister and had a blessing said over me, followed by a thumbsmear of gritty, oily ash in the shape of a cross. I was awash in the hymns, the sacred space, the knowledge that I stood in line behind the millions who had went before me, the belonging to a centuries old community that professes to know something of life and death, fear and hope. Here, I fully belonged.

And then I went to the bank.

I stood in line, patiently waiting my chance to deposit my check. The line was long and, as I stood there, people’s eyes would pass over me and then do a double take. Or they would stare at my ashy, greasy head and then, when I would make eye contact, jerk their eyes away, denying their curiosity. It took me a minute to remember that I had this greasy smear of ash on my head. As much as I hate to admit it, I felt the urge to pull my watch cap further down my head, to hide the ashes, to avoid the stares. To avoid feeling like the “Other”.

My ADD riddled brain then made the jump to thinking about others who’s religion requires of them a symbol or outward sign. The Islamic woman’s Hijab, the Hindu Tilak, the curly sidelocks of the Hasidic Jew, the plain clothes of the more conservative Mennonite groups, the horse and buggy of the Amish. All people who do not fit in, all people who are identified by mainstream society as “Other” because of their devotion to their God. In a very minor move of solidarity with them, I removed my watch cap, ashes in full view.

Christianity is an invisible faith – outwardly, anyway. Since there is no crazy Jesus fish on my bumper, there are no outward signs of my daily decision to follow in the way of Jesus. Nothing to make me stand out. I am not seen as the “Other”.

In this world, I appear to belong. Maybe that is the problem. Maybe that we so seldom know the feeling of being the “Other” is what makes it so easy for us to “Otherize” those who differ from us.

I know the ashes story – the mourning, the sadness, the reminder of our creation from dust and our inevitable return to it, even as, as my friend Ashley said this morning, “…our souls live in eternity with God”. But today, ashes on my head, I am, in a very minor way, the “Other” and it is my prayer that I remember that feeling.