Ash Wednesday

"Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return." It's Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, the 40 days of fasting, prayer and penance preparing the heart for Easter. 

The girls and I went to Mass this morning and received our ashes, and began our Lenten journals. Last year we made journals with cardboard covers, journaled throughout Lent then decorated the covers at Easter. This year I made my journal from a hymnal page, a scrap of my mom's lace and a snippet of paper my dad signed. (My dad used to sign his books and write the date he finished reading it.) I chose this date from the stack of snippets because on March 30th this year, at the Easter Vigil, my grandpa is getting baptized. So today begins my journey through the desert of Lent toward the light of Easter.

"Yet even now," says the Lord, "return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and tear your hearts and not your garments." Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful , slow to anger, and abounding in mercy, and relenting in punishment." Joel 2:12-13

Yesterday, was our monthly trip to the orthodontist. As one of my Facebook friends said, "Something this expensive deserves to be photographed." 

They always laugh at me when I come into the office toting my camera. I told them you don't even need a press pass to get good photo access if your camera is big enough. (P.S. That's not always true, but it doesn't hurt your efforts.) 

I tried to get a shot of Torrey's reflection in the little tooth mirror, but then I was getting in the way of their actual work. We can't win them all! 

"In every century, in this century, in the next century, the Passion is what it was in the first century, when it occurred; a thing stared at by a crowd. It remains a tragedy of the people; a crime of the people; a consolation of the people; but never merely a thing of the period. And its vitality comes from the very things that its foes find a scandal and a stumbling-block; from its dogmatism and from its dreadfulness. It lives, because it involves the staggering story of the Creator truly groaning and travailing with his Creation; and the highest thing thinkable passing through some nadir of the lowest curve of the cosmos. And it lives, because the very blast from this black cloud of death comes upon the world as a wind of everlasting life; by which all things wake and are alive."

-G.K. Chesterton, 'The Way of the Cross'