Since I have been cleaning out my wood stove and becoming intimately aquainted with ashes I have been contemplating ashes. Last Year on Ash Wednesday I was struggline through my CPE rotation and this is what I wrote.
When I first heard that the hospital had a formal service to distribute ashes with the help of the chaplaincy staff, I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about it. "Ashes???? We don’t do ashes.” I wasn’t sure that I could relate to the significance of the ashes and my mind kept asking the question “why.” I was hoping this wasn’t going to be a time when my Free Church beliefs were going to prevent me from digging deeper into this experience. Was I going to shut down to the experience and kind of slough it off or could I learn something from this Ash Wednesday? I took the view that okay this was a "them" thing and I was "me" and would be part of this "business", but keep my spiritual distance.
I offered to do the chapel service that day while the rest of the chaplains went to lobby to help out with the noontime distribution of ashes. I knew I could plan and lead a worship service. It's comfortable and familiar and maybe I wouldn't be called on to administer ashes. I agreed to help out with the five o’clock distribution of ashes, figuring it was the least I could do and also figuring that there wouldn't be many people at the later service. And
least was the word my mind used. Somehow in my mind this whole ash business was “icky.”
We went to the blessing of the ashes with the Eucharist ministers first thing in the morning. It seemed a bit bizarre to me that this pile of ashes could mean something, as if it was some kind of magic potion or a pile of magic beans. I was dubious and nervous, not one to feel nimble and sure footed when I encounter something that is a very different religious tradition. How do I stay true to my beliefs but also minister to the people? As I looked at my envelope I sighed inwardly, “Well, these ashes for some reason that was beyond me were important to some Christians.” I worked hard to keep that free church part of me from either bursting out laughing at the odd sight of an envelope full of ashes or displaying an attitude of some kind of “whatever!” I wrote the words for annointing carefully on my envelope so if I was called upon, I could do a good job of distributing the ashes without attitude. It wasn’t that there was any outward sign of this entire struggle. It was all internal.
After a short morning on the floor, where, much to my relief people seemed content to wait for the Eucharist ministers to administer the ashes. I headed for the chapel service at noon feeling that I had found some kind of safety zone from Ash Wednesday. As I was preparing for the service, people came looking for ashes and I directed them to the hospital lobby. Five nurses showed up and seemed dismayed to find out that they had to go all the way to the lobby since they were short on time and needed to get back to the floor. When I mentioned tentatively that I had ashes and could distribute them, I was startled that they said yes and the fact that I was a Baptist minister didn't seem important. My last door out of the situation had just closed. As I did my first anointing of ashes and said the words on my envelope the women seemed very content. After they left, I couldn’t help but think, “that’s it?”
A couple of families came by looking for ashes and I administered ashes to them also this time not mentioning that I was a Baptist minister. I realized I wasn’t a Baptist Minister in this setting. I was a chaplain. I conducted the chapel service to a full house of about twelve people. I mulled over my thoughts all afternoon and kept wondering the significance of the ashes to these people. I knew the tradition, but still couldn’t connect in a deep way.
I arrived for the five o’clock service and was amazed to see people pacing around waiting for the ashes to arrive. One woman seemed particularly anxious. When I asked if she was in a hurry, she nodded yes and was very relieved when I told her I could administer the ashes. The look on her face and the thank you she gave me as she turned to leave began to open things up a bit for me. I saw another woman standing off by herself waiting for the ashes, I went up and spoke to her and found that she was the wife of a patient in the hospital. She told me how her husband wanted to be cremated and that she did not want him to be cremated. As I stood there listening to her story, holding the envelope of ashes it struck me as ironic that she should be struggling with her husband returning to ashes yet anxious to receive ashes. It is one of those moments to ponder. There were about fifty people for the service and the priest, the chaplain and I helped with the service. I did a couple of the prayers and distributed ashes to a line of people, saying the words, making the sign of the cross on countless foreheads. I began to realize that
I didn’t matter. It was the ashes that were important to these believers, not who administered them.
After the service I went up to the ICU unit to finish distribute ashes on the wards. When I stopped at the nurses’ station, three nurses wanted ashes, right there. Again it wasn’t the place or the person – it was the ashes. As I went from room to room distributing ashes to patients and families there was such relief when they got their ashes. One elderly woman was barely awake, but when she got her ashes I could see the peace creep across her face. People seemed grateful and relieved to receive their ashes. I stopped in the waiting area and offered ashes to families waiting out there. It was then that I became a chaplain. It was then that I understood that I wasn’t the important one, All these months of training had been to help me improve my pastoral skills but the ultimate goal was the patients’ spiritual support, walking with them, even when I didn’t know the words or understand the why. It was the pastoral presence that had made a difference to these people.
