St. Mark’s Above Best Buy
had two Ash Wednesday services. Being old people, we went to the noon service,
because we had been out late—6 pm-- the night before at the Shrove Tuesday
pancake supper, in the same venue, and could not go to the 7 p.m. Ash Wednesday
service since we cannot be out late two nights in a row.
The noon service was
especially nice and meaningful. About 20 of our fellow oldsters, comfortable
and intimate, low-key, thoughtful leading by Jimmy Moore, beautiful organ music
by Heather Orvek, and a quick answer from Helen McFarland.
Jimmy normally preaches a
Sunday Homily, but on Ash Wednesday it was a Hundai Homily. He posted earlier
in the morning that he was at the Hundai dealership to get his oil changed and
work on his homily. If I were still preaching, I would go there to work on my
sermons, because it’s obviously a productive atmosphere.
The preaching series at
St. Mark’s for all of Lent is the questions we do ask and need to ask about
faith. In the Hundai Homily, Jimmy asked what group of people gets asked
questions the most.
Helen immediately replied,
“Mothers.” She was, of course, right.
Old people often stop
asking questions. We think we’ve been around so long we already know all the
answers. That’s why we get old. We stay young by asking questions, the way the
little ones do of mothers.
One question I had was:
would Jimmy have grease on his fingers from the oil change and thus our
forehead ashes would be harder to wash off. Like most of the other questions we
ask at Lent, we have to be patient and wait for the answer…
John Robert McFarland
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