SchneiderWeb

Today I got in touch with my Catholic roots in--of all places--a Presbyterian church. Every Wednesday I serve at Broadway as part of my year-long field education, which on Wednesday primarily involves leading the young adult/college group in the evening. However, today being Ash Wednesday, the church was open for most of the day to anyone who wished to receive ashes. (Yes, it turns out that Protestants do receive ashes. Who knew?) The church's full-time pastor and I took turns administering ashes to people as they wandered in throughout the afternoon and also during the evening service. It was an altogether strange, solemn, and humbling experience to be the one making an ashen cross on people's foreheads and uttering the words of Genesis 3:19: "Dust you were and to dust you shall return." I was intensely moved today by several different aspects of what I experienced. First of all, in receiving ashes on our foreheads we're participating in a ritual as old as the ...

I'm still here; however, I'm not sure if you're still there. If you are, I have a backlog of posts coming. I've been captive to an unsustainable schedule. Between the January short-term, field education, One Table Fellowship, interviewing for summer clinical pastoral education positions in the NYC and the Princeton areas, and moving into a new apartment in Princeton, finding time to write on this blog has not been a priority. I hope to change that in the coming weeks.