As a child, I was somewhat confused about death. I blame Star Wars.
The original Star Wars movie came out when I was three; seeing it with my family remains one of my earliest memories. My meditation on the movie continued over a comic-book adaptation of the story that I read over and over until it finally fell apart from over-reading a couple of years later. My first conscious experience of “death” was Obi Wan Kenobi cut down by Darth Vader in a dramatic lightsaber duel—and his subsequent disappearance.
Thus, I thought that’s what everybody did when they died: their body just vanished like Ben Kenobi’s.
Around that time, my maternal grandfather passed away. I was so puzzled when my mom and dad told me that they were going to the viewing; I distinctly remember wondering, “Since he disappeared, what is it that they are going to go see…?”
Parents might be reluctant to take their children to a service like Ash Wednesday because of its thematic content; the two big things on tap are death and sin. If they’re anything like me at that age, your kids have already been exposed to the concept of death, if only in movies. Indeed, if your kids have seen the virtually obligatory Disney canon, they’ve seen death used as a plot device that turns on them understanding something about it. Think of the shooting of Bambi’s mom or the crushing of Ray the Cajun firefly in The Princess and the Frog.
Since my wife is an Episcopal priest, I’m the parent responsible for taking our two girls to church, managing them in the pew by myself, keeping them attentive (or at least relatively quiet), and answering any questions that might come up. I know what it’s like to get the questions; I’ve handled the questions (including an age-appropriate explanation of the whole “Bathsheba” incident). And, yes, even as a theologically-trained biblical scholar I find myself fumbling for words or saying, “uh—I’ll get back to you on that…” But what I have learned is that the kids already have questions about these things; what they hear in the service provides them an opportunity to ask about a topic they’ve encountered but don’t understand. Death is one of those.
I never asked my parents about death or about the whole “disappearing” thing. But I kind of wish I had—or that they would have discussed it with me. I had to figure it out. I’ve tried to have these discussions so my girls won’t be in the same boat I was. Now—there’s something to be said for sheltering your kids from graphic depictions of death and violence. However, these unpleasant realities are facts of the world we live in. There’s a difference between sheltering kids from content versus sheltering them from concepts. They don’t need to see the pictures, but they do need to understand what happens in the world around them.
With the topics we don’t feel comfortable talking to our kids about—let’s just call out death and sex as two of the biggies—we can cling to the illusion that if we don’t bring them up, our kids will never know about them. But the combination of pop culture and conversation with friends make this a losing strategy in the long term. If you don’t do the educating, the entertainment industry will. My preference has always been to have brief periodic age-appropriate conversations about big topics like these. Clear and honest conversation on difficult topics is way better than glossing over them in silence and praying for ignorance.
Thus, Ash Wednesday services and the resulting questions provide an opportunity for clear, honest communication with your kids to clear up misunderstandings about life and death—or sin—they may have absorbed from movies, TV, or friends.
However, another major piece of parental uncomfortability with Ash Wednesday is all about sheltering but isn’t focused on the kids. It’s about us. We’re trying to shelter ourselves.
Ash Wednesday is a difficult but necessary part of the Christian proclamation. It wrestles with stuff that we work very hard at avoiding. Nobody likes to think about death or sin, but Ash Wednesday puts these things front and center. If there’s anything that I want to avoid more than my own mortality, it’s my kids’ mortality.
My younger daughter was born at the end of February. Her very first trip outside our house was going to the church my wife served for Ash Wednesday. Let me tell you: it’s a cold hard slap of reality to see a cross of ash on the forehead of your newborn. Some members of the congregation were shocked that we even brought her up, and questioned if such a thing was even appropriate. But it is. Death is a part of life. Mortality is a part of reality.
Bringing your kids to Ash Wednesday services means that you will receive the reminder that your kids will die. Some day. Hopefully a very long time from now. I, for one, don’t like to be reminded that my girls will die. But Ash Wednesday confronts me with that fact. The great Anglican spiritual teacher Evelyn Underhill once defined mysticism as the art of bringing the self into union with reality. The mystic—the truly spiritual person—is one who embraces that challenge. And that means facing reality, not fleeing it, and all of its hard edges.
The Gospel calls us to open up our lives, to live honestly in light of what the world is and who God is. The truth of the Gospel means wrestling with truths that we don’t like. There’s a natural inclination to hide them from our kids–and from ourselves. But, through the practices of the Liturgical Year like Ash Wednesday, the church calls us to an integrity about ourselves, about the world around us, and about God.
Only if we’re willing to tell the whole truth about sin and death are we able to tell the whole truth about resurrection.
Bring your kids to Ash Wednesday. Let them see and hear and participate in the Church’s admission of the hard edges of reality: that we sin; that we die. Let them ask you questions about what all of that means. Answer honestly—even if it’s a solemn, heart-felt, “I’ve got no clue…”
Hear the invitation to the keeping of a holy Lent as an invitation to study the hard edges of reality with the conviction that a robust faith helps us grapple with reality as it is, not flee it for more comfortable and comforting fantasies.
Come to hear the truth—for the truth will set you free.
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I don’t know if our liturgy, readings or tradition differs much from the USA but I’ve always heard the Ash Wednesday rites as being about stripping away all the pretence. Preparing to be more honest with God and self (perhaps others too). Often kids get that easier than adults, not having learned all the subtle adult ways of avoiding the “reality” Underhill describes.
I find the Ash Wednesday service in many ways to be the most moving service of the year for me, because in receiving the sign of the cross in ashes on my forehead, I am reminded anew each year that those ashes are placed atop the very same sign of the cross that was put on my forehead in chrism, at my baptism, marking me as Christ’s own forever. The ashes, while reminding me that I will die, that from dust I came and to dust I shall return, cannot fail to remind me also of Christ’s triumph over death, of my trust in him and that I belong to him forever. It is a moment of profound reassurance for me. I always brought my children to Ash Wednesday services and explained it to them in just this way. The ashes in the sign of the cross on their foreheads sits atop the sign of the cross given to them at baptism. Yes, there is death, but most important, yes, there is Christ and nothing can change that we are his forever. The sign of the cross at chrism never goes away, even though it can no longer be seen. Neither ashes nor anything else can remove it. We are always Christ’s won forever. We need never be afraid.
I want to thank you so much for this comment. I hope you don’t mind, as I will credit you, but I intend to include your reflection in my Ash Wednesday homily today – editing now.
‘Just saw your note now. I don’t mind a bit – in fact, I am delighted that you found it meaningful and useful.
Beautifully stated. Thank you.
Thank you for your kind wotds.
Wonderful piece. I think this will help me a lot with my sermon for tomorrow. Billy Collins has a great poem called “The History Teacher” that echoes this theme. It begins:
“Trying to protect his students’ innocence
he told the them Ice Age was really just
the Chilly Age, a period of a million years
when everyone had to wear sweaters.”
Thanks to Derek for this thoughtful blog!
I am an Episcopal priest and mother of twin sons. There was a couple of years starting when they were about five that they resolutely refused to receive ashes. My one son was almost acting terrified about it. As I was presiding I was unable to ask him about it in the moment, but later as we talked, over a couple of years, I came to understand that he knew exactly what the ashes on our forehead means–it means we are mortal, this body will die, and there’s not a thing we can do about that. Eventually he came around to understand that he may be frightened, but he doesn’t have to let that fear overwhelm him. Of course, who knows what will happen tomorrow when I come around to his place at the altar rail and say, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Whatever happens, we’ll have a good conversation later at home I am sure.
Thank you for your thoughts. I am helping to raise my 2 great grandsons so they know I am old and ask me if I am going to die. I tell them that the body I am in is wearing out and some day God will take my inter person like my thoughts, love, and mind to heaven and give me a new body. They are 4 and 5 and accept the fact I will be with Jesus then.
Well written, well-said! Thank you Derek.
Ash Wednesday, Part Two: “But know that my redeemer[ lives,
and that in the end he will stand on the earth.[
And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God;
I myself will see him
with my own eyes—I, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!” Job 19
I am a priest, and I preside at Communion for the Sisters of St. Anne in Arlington, MA once a month, and last year my day was Ash Wednesday. This was also school vacation, so I brought my two children with me. My pre-school-aged daughter goes with me every month, and was used to having Communion with the sisters and then having breakfast with them. We talked about how this service would be different, how it reminds us that someday we will die. Both children did well, and my son received ashes. But after the service, the Mother Superior delivered the sad news that the sisters fast on Ash Wednesday–so no breakfast! While she had taken her own mortality in stride, my daughter burst into tears upon learning that she would not get her (second) breakfast with the sisters that day. Which of course made the lovely and generous nuns feel terrible . . . though now we can laugh about it!
Thank you my dear friends for the information.
Children understand more than we give them credit for. My children and my grandchildren have attended services since they were tiny. Example: When my grandson was two he went to the altar rail with us (as he always did) held up his hands and was given the bread. The priest asked me after if I thought he had made a mistake – I suggested he ask my grandson. When he asked him what he had gotten at the altar rail – my grandson said “Jesus”. No one coached him – he just knew.
What a wonderful story! Thank you for sharing it.
Precious! He gets it!