Ashes, Ashes, We All - Believe in Something

“Find a penny pick it up, all day long you have good luck.” Right?

Are you one of those people who reaches down to pick up that penny off the street? OR do you walk past it thinking… “it’s only worth one measly cent”! For me it depends on the day… sometimes I believe that a penny could turn it all around. Sometimes I think it’s just a cent on a dirty germ-invested floor and the whole rhyme is superstitious bullshit. My belief is wildly inconsistent and just depends on my mood.

What is consistent and what I am certain of, is that I am Catholic. This Wednesday, myself and millions of others, walked around all day with ashes on our head. I spend $10 on face wash, $40 on moisturizer, I use scented soaps, shower gels, perfumes, make-up (all the things we partake in to beautify); Yet, I didn’t hesitate to allow the priest to generously apply soot to my forehead.

When you stop to really think about it—it’s kind of bizarre.

But we don’t really think about it, we just do it. We do it because its tradition and over the years it has become what we believe in. Some Catholics chose not to get ashes or bring home pieces of a dead tree on Palm Sunday. To these people they don’t believe in the worth of that gesture, so it’s silly.

So what makes the ritual/practice/tradition serious rather than just plain silly? I think it is whether you put stock in it; i.e. - whether you chose to believe in it or not.

But Religion aside (because I’m still not ready to go down that road for a blog yet), each and every one of us is guilty of one some kind of silly habit/ritual/belief/keepsake that we hold onto. Something of which has nothing to do with race, religion or gender. Don’t believe me? What about....

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xoxo

Lana