Pancakes and Ashes

Oh, I know this was supposed to be Part Two of the "Ten Most Influential" post, but a guy can't always do what a guy's supposed to do. And besides, it's the beginning of Lent -- Ash Wednesday and all that -- a time of year when I'm especially grateful to be retired from parish ministry. I thought I'd spend a few minutes ruminating, maybe even whining, about this season in the Church's life and mine.

Even bringing up the subject gives me cold chills, and I can literally feel my insides tightening up as I think about Lent, for whereas I was usually juggling three or four balls during the rest of the year, in Lent it went up to six or eight and some of them were on fire! I dreaded it. Lent was, bottom line, a dreary and hectic time: in the last gray days of winter we had at least one and sometimes two or three extra classes and worship services each week, a mid-week dinner with program, and since the bishop always made his annual visitation to the parish on Palm Sunday there were Confirmation Classes and meetings with potential confirmands. All that, of course, was only a prelude to Holy Week and Easter.

It all begins with Shrove Tuesday/Carnival/Mardi gras/Fat Tuesday, the day before Lent starts when it is customary in the Episcopal Church not to have a big whoop-ti-do like our Catholic friends but to have a parish family pancake supper. By tradition, Shrove Tuesday had something to do with getting the excess grease out of the kitchen before the Lenten fast began, but all that's pretty fuzzy. It's just one of those things we do because, well, because we've always done them. Rather like having our sins shriven.

My fondest memory of pancake suppers is of my first one in the small West Virginia congregation I served. I had been working in the tiny kitchen for several hours, the place was hot and reeked of burnt pancakes and sausage, tempers were growing short, and we were trying to keep up with the demand when a boy of five or six kept tugging at my apron saying, "I don't like pancakes; can I have a waffle?" He was nearly excommunicated, or worse, on the spot.

Another time we had the first in what was to become the annual debate about applesauce. Folks who developed a sense of ownership of the pancake supper had a strong idea about what the menu should (or should not) be, and that fruity delicacy became the focus of some pretty heated conversation. Finally, as good Anglicans, we developed a middle ground: a bowl of applesauce went on every table. And so the Church moves on towards glory.

Then the first thing next morning, the delicate fragrance of old pancakes lingering like incense, the faithful gather for Ash Wednesday's solemn beginning of Lent. Episcopalians seem to hold to the peculiar belief that God is uniquely accessible early in the morning, so there were always a lot of folks there at 7:00, but for the sluggards whose devotion was obviously deficient, we also offered identical services at noon and after dinner. The marking of the forehead with black ashes was something that back then only our show-off Catholic friends did; we were content to follow our Lord's more modest advice to keep our devotion hidden.

Then we were off and running, and for the next forty days (well, not literally forty, because we never included Sundays in our computation, and even then it was only a symbolic number) we tried, individually and as a parish, to observe a Holy Lent. The operative word here is "tried", for as Christians our task is to strive toward holiness, not perfection; we are always a Work In Progress, perhaps most especially during Lent.

The memories of Lent are clear and, on balance, pretty good ones, even though my stomach still tightens up when I hear the organ play the first few measures of "Forty Days and Forty Nights". It was rather like hearing "My Old Kentucky Home" just before the Derby, even if your horse finished last.