David Hurd's Psalm 51
It's not about giving up chocolate, sweets, meat, dropping a dollar in the swear jar, or other things. It's about being authentic to yourself and to God, while you get off your rear end and make a difference in the world around you.
Growing up in Armstrongism I listened to endless sermons by ministers and evangelists mocking and deriding those that kept this day as insincere and a total waste of time. Meredith came up with some of the most absurd and inaccurate comments that anyone could dream up. Actually what he said was and still is, a blatant lie!
Seeing the wide eyes of little kids kneeling in front of you with tears in their eyes, or huge smiles as they experience something that only a child can through untarnished minds. They look into your eyes with a look of awe. And then they turn to their parents and look them in their eyes with a deep connection only a parent can ever see. Probably like the kind of look we should be having with God. Totally free with no baggage. Oh, to be a child again!
I saw a blind young man tonight who is wheelchair bound with a body that is wracked by cerebral palsy, rhythmically moving in slow motion due to the muscles in his body twisting and writhing about, sit there with tears streaming down his cheeks as he attempts to stop his body from moving when the ashes are placed on his forehead, clearly and distinctly saying 'amen' afterwords. He does the same thing when the Eucharist is brought to him. His body stops moving as he takes the wafer in his distorted hands and places it in his mouth and sips the wine. He understands something that I probably never will. Something deeper and more meaningful than any HWA sermon, booklet or book ever did. Something deeper about the mystery that surrounds us, the mystery of the unknown yet knowable, the grain of the universe that calls to us into something we cannot fathom, something so foreign to us that we let it slip past us the minute we walk out the doors of the church into the real world.
I saw people in attendance tonight that I know are agnostic and a couple of atheists who have no idea what or who God is. Yet, they admit something draws them back, week after week. Something they cannot understand but want to be a part of. They are involved in feeding the homeless, knitting prayer shawls for the sick and dying, caring for those with AIDS, working in hospice or visiting the sick and homebound. They too have the opportunity to delve into something deeper and more mysterious with new ways of looking and understanding that I can never have. It is a delight to be around them
I am grateful for my journey out of Armstrongism. I regret many opportunities lost because of its aberrant, absurd, and irrelevant teachings, yet there was a lot I treasure. How I came out halfway sane is a miracle! :-) I am grateful for Gavin's web sites and blogs over the years and for Dennis's unwavering self examination and willingness to question without apology. What a ride it has been and continues to be!
Gary, 2011
Addendum 2025
Who would have imagined I would still be serving at an Ash Wednesday service as I did at noon today so many years later. In fact, this is now year 25 doing this.
I was reminded of the original post that I did in 2011 (above) after reading Bob Thiel's sophomoric understanding of Ash Wednesday and Lent that he posted the other day. His thinking was inherented from equally sophomoric men from the Worldwide Church of God and Ambassador College.
This explanation that I saw on X today establishes the Christian thought behind the season of Lent.
Lent was never meant to be easy. It was meant to break you.
For centuries, Lent has been seen as a time of mild sacrifice—giving up chocolate, social media, or coffee.
But the truth? The origins of Lent are far more brutal, far more raw. It wasn’t about self-improvement. It was about spiritual survival.
In the earliest days of Christianity, when faith was a crime punishable by death, Lent was a preparation for war.
It was a time of fasting so intense that bodies weakened, a period of prayer so fervent that the line between heaven and earth seemed to blur.
Those who took part weren’t just giving up luxuries—they were stripping themselves down to nothing, purging everything but faith, because they knew what was coming.
Baptism on Easter was not a ceremony. It was an initiation into a life that could lead to the arena, the stake, or the sword.
The forty days of Lent mirror Christ’s own forty days in the wilderness, where He faced the devil as a starving, vulnerable man.
And yet, He endured. That’s what Lent was always meant to be: a confrontation with the darkest parts of ourselves. A reckoning. A test.
But over time, the world softened it. It became a season of small sacrifices rather than total surrender.
We made it comfortable.
Yet true Lent, real Lent, was always meant to cut deep. To leave scars. To change you.
So, the question isn’t what will you give up?
A couple of todays readings:
A reading from Joel (2:1–2, 12–17)
Blow the shofar in Zion! Sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the people of the land tremble! For the Day of our God is coming — it is near — a day of bleakness and gloom, a day of fog and dense clouds. A vast and countless horde appears like soot spread over the hills; it is like something never known before, nor will be seen in ages to come. “But know this,” says our God: “Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, weeping and mourning. Tear open your heart, not your clothes!” Return to your God who is gracious and deeply loving as a mother quick to forgive, abundantly tenderhearted — and relents from inflicting disaster. Who knows? God may come back, relent, and leave a blessing behind — grain and drink offerings for your God. Sound the shofar in Zion! Order a fast! Proclaim a solemn assembly! Gather the people! Purify the community! Assemble the elders! Gather the children — even infants at the breast! Let the bridegroom leave his bedroom and the bride her canopied bed! Let the priests, the ministers of God, stand weeping between the portico and the altar and say, “Spare your people, O God! Do not let your heritage become an object of ridicule, a byword for the Nations! Do not let the peoples say, ‘Where is their god?’”
A reading from Isaiah (58:1–12)
“Shout for all you are worth, raise your voice like a trumpet! Proclaim to the people their faults; tell the house of Leah and Rachel and Jacob their sins! They seek me daily, they long to know my ways, like a nation that wants to act with integrity and not ignore the law of its God. They ask me for laws that are just, they long for God to draw near. Yet they say, ‘Why should we fast if you never see it? Why do penance if you never notice?’ Because when you fast it is business as usual, and you oppress all your workers! Because when you fast, you quarrel and fight and strike the poor with your fist! Fasting like yours today will never make your voice heard on high! Is that the sort of fast that pleases me — a day when people humiliate themselves, hanging their heads like a reed, lying down on sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call fasting, a day acceptable to God? On the contrary! This is the sort of fast that pleases me: Remove the chains of injustice! Undo the ropes of the yoke! Let those who are oppressed go free, and break every yoke you encounter! Share your bread with those who are hungry, and shelter homeless poor people! Clothe those who are naked, and do not hide from the needs of your own flesh and blood! Do this, and your light will shine like the dawn — and your healing will break forth like lightening! Your integrity will go before you, and the glory of God will be your rearguard. Cry, and God will answer; call and God will say ‘I am here—provided you remove from your midst all oppression, finger-pointing, and malicious talk! If you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your shadows will become like noon. God will always guide you, giving relief in desert places. God will give you strength to your bones and you will be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters never run dry. You will rebuild the ancient ruins and build upon age-old foundations. You will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, and Restorer of Ruined Neighborhoods.’”
