Last Wednesday, I stopped off mid-day at Cumberland Farms. Standing at the counter waiting to check out, the woman behind the counter had her back turned to me. She was simultaneously organizing boxes of cigarettes and Chap Stick variety packs. When she finally turned around, she exclaimed, “Oh, I was hoping I would see you today.”
Now, you should know, I go to Cumberland Farms all the time, and to this one especially. There’s a reason they call it a convenience store—it’s right down the street from my house, and perfect for getting gas, mints, or that gallon of emergency milk. So, it stands to reason that I would know the people who work there, and that they would know me. Or that we would at least be able to pick each other out of a line-up. But I swear by the glass of milk I drank for dinner tonight, I’ve never walked in there wearing a clerical collar. This is important, because how else can you explain what happened next?
“Do you have any ashes with you?” I turned my head to see who was behind me, sure that she had to be talking to someone else. But she wasn’t. I was the only one in line. “Who me?” I asked, doubtfully pointing at myself. “You want to know if I have any ashes?”
Her question wasn’t without some merit. It was, after all, Ash Wednesday. That day when Christians have been known to smear ashes on their foreheads in remembrance of their mortality. You are dust and to dust you shall return. As if any of us, including Christians, need reminding. It’s not just that we all know pants go on one leg at a time, or that we’re all going to kick the bucket one day like it or not, it’s that we have found every conceivable way to denigrate, demonize, traffic, starve, ignore, and straight up shoot and kill each other, stacking up body counts from Selma to Minneapolis, Nagasaki to Gaza. In life we are mortal, dangerously so.
But also this: “Yes, do you have any ashes with you? You’re a reverend, aren’t you? Don’t you do holy things?”
Even now, I don’t know how the woman behind the counter knew this about me. “Yes, I am a reverend, but I’m afraid I don’t have any ashes with me.”
She paused for a moment to consider my answer, and to put down the fifteen cartons of Virginia Slims she was holding. “That’s okay. We can pretend you do.”
Leaning across the counter, she tilted her head towards me. I put down the gallon of milk I was holding. My fingertips felt cold. I put them to her forehead and traced the sign of a cross. “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” In that moment, she let the full weight of her head fall forward into my hand, as if daring me to drop this blessing I’d been given. “And you are beloved,” I added.
She looked up and locked eyes with me. “So are you.”
There are a lot of days (most days) I move through this world just trying to keep from being found out. No one has to know you’re a reverend. How embarrassing. You don’t even have ashes on Ash Wednesday. Then, for the cost of a gallon of milk and a stop-off in town, I am called out.
You do holy things don’t you? No, you don’t? We can always just pretend you do.
But we can’t pretend. None of us can. For we are mortal—there is no hiding from this—a mere 36 inches of countertop away from being beloved.
PleaseGrace 