Lent

I love the season of Lent. I didn't grow up in the church so I don't have any baggage about it. Hear me, I have baggage - just not about Lent. Lent is a time for grieving over sin. Mine. Yours. The Worlds. I need a time to grieve over the brokenness in me and around me - don't you? Today was my first time attending a Catholic church for Ash Wednesday service. I loved seeing the diversity of God's people - all coming to declare their need to grieve. Their need to come clean. To come nearer to God. That was at noon today. Tonight at 6 PM I'm going to meet my friend, Denny and her friend - whom I've never met - for dinner. And so there's this tension in me about the ashes. Do I wash the ashes so as not to freak her out? (Or so as not to declare my "spirituality" as the Scriptural reading declared today.) Or do I wear the ashes to declare to her and the world "I'm in mourning." Both are valid - aren't they? Regardless of whether or not one can see the ashes - I'm thankful for a month to mourn over sin. Mine and yours and the worlds. I need it.