We're Engaged! (Plus thoughts about Ash Wednesday!)

That's right, Corey and I are engaged!  We are both very very excited and I cannot wait to start wedding planning!  This all happened on Monday evening when Corey came to my door to pick me up for a casual dinner at Panera.  Months ago, Corey was leaving my apartment and knelt down at my door to fix some tape that had come up from the floor.  He jokingly pretended to pull something out of his pocket and I laughed and said something like, "Don't scare me like that!"  His response was, "Next time I'll have a ring."  So here we are on Monday, I opened the door to find him kneeling on the ground, "tying his shoe."  He looked at me and asked, "Do you remember what I said would happen the next time I am like this?"  Then he held out the ring and asked me to marry him.  I said yes after a moment of shock and excitement...we took pictures, called family and friends, and went out for a romantic dinner at one of our favorite places.  I was very impressed...he even brought over pants and a tie to change into so we could get dressed up for dinner!  As if all of this wasn't enough, he wrote me a very nice letter.  Pictures are on facebook of the evening.  My ring is beautiful, and more importantly, my fiance is everything I could ever hope for and more!  I am so excited that we get to spend our lives together.  While we were at the restaurant, an elderly couple came in a few minutes after we did and were seated at a table nearby.  I couldn't help but watch them every once in a while and appreciate the parallels going on.  Corey and I were there- young, newly engaged, looking forward to starting our lives together, and there was this couple- elderly, hard of hearing, maybe complaining about the food a little bit- but they were together- together through many many years, and out for a romantic evening.  I smiled at Corey and said, "Look, that will be us someday!"  He said, "Yes, but I'm in no hurry to get there!!"  Very true, very true...

This is a very exciting time for me with our engagement, my interview coming up next week, and graduating in a few months.  There is so much up ahead to look forward to!  In this time of Lent, it is important to remember why we do the things we do and to be mindful of what is important in our lives.  I always think of Lent as a time to be thankful for the blessings that we do have and to remember that we are all in need of improvement and grace, which is why many of us give something up for Lent or devote ourselves more deeply to God.  Today is Ash Wednesday, and many of us will receive the ashes and the sign of the cross on our foreheads to symbolize that we are dust, and to dust we shall return.  It is a day to remember that we are all broken and in need of God's love, that we are not as strong as we would like to think sometimes, and that we are redeemed by Christ even though we are nothing but ashes.  We are reminded that we, too, will someday die and become ashes, given back to the earth. 

 One of my favorite writers, Anne Lamott, has a chapter in her book Traveling Mercies about Ash Wednesday.  She speaks about spreading the ashes of her best friend that has died.  She says that ashes are uncooperative, heavy and yet light, and that they stick to everything...they get in our eyes, our clothes, our hair.  They haunt us with their presence, with their unclear purpose and ambiguity.  We don't know whether to laugh or cry, to keep them with us or give them to the earth.  We wonder what they will become.  This time of year I find myself thinking about the ashes in many ways- they are the remains of the promising palm branches of the previous year's Palm Sunday.  Something so alive, so green, so promising becomes ashes, becomes us, wishing to be freed of them...yet we want to be marked by them- their mystery, their "stickiness," their tension between death and future redemption.  What will my ashes this year signify?  What will yours?