A Fib on Ash Wednesday

ashes on the altar at St. Martin in the Fields
London, 2012

"Dirty Hands Dirty Feet

I'm over my head it's made a mess of me

But it keeps you coming back to the

Way of love never stops on easy street

You've gotta walk through the muddy water to come clean"

Dirty Hands Dirty Feet by Peter Mayer 

click here to listen to Dirty Hands Dirty Feet

It seems so counterintuitive, "You've gotta walk through the muddy water to come clean." So, it seems that is what we do today on Ash Wednesday as ashes are applied to our foreheads. We come looking for forgiveness. We are told to "come clean," to confess those "things we have done and left undone." As I have often stated before, in my humble opinion my "undone" list is longer than my "done" list. I have remained silent when others have been unfairly slurred or attacked. I haven't forgiven in the way that I've been forgiven. I haven't turned the other cheek when struck. I haven't always been, light, leaven or salt. "You've gotta walk through the muddy water to come clean."

That line always takes me back to Naaman and Elisaha. Naaman was told by his servant girl to go to the prophet Elisha. We pick up the story in 2 Kings 5:

^"10Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, "Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean." ¹¹But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, "I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy! ¹²Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?" He turned and went away in a rage."

"You've gotta walk through the muddy water to come clean"

Sixteen months ago, I was diagnosed with afib, which is short for atrial fibrillation. What that means is sometimes my heart is fast and irregular. For the most part it is "controlled" by medication.  Learn more here.

However, every once in a while my heart is "off to the races."

Last year as I sat in the lovely sanctuary of St. Martin in the Fields

on Ash Wednesday, all of a sudden I experienced the usual symptoms of afib, (rapid heartbeat, some light-headedness) while the collect for the day was prayed:

"Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing that you have made and forgive the sins of all those who are penitent: create and make in us new and contrite hearts that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may receive from you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen"

For just a moment I thought about the connection between "afib" and a fib, the lie we sometimes tell ourselves according to 1 John 1:8:

^8"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."

1 John 1:8

As King David sang (U2's Bono calls him the 'Elvis of the Bible'),

"Create in me a clean heart Oh God and renew a right spirit within me" (Psalm 51)

Ash Wednesday is a day to tell the truth. The truth of it is, "We are dust and to dust we shall return."

It seems counterintuitive, but,

"You've gotta walk through the muddy water to come clean"

Blessings,

rtg