Ash Wednesday

red neck richie said:

I agree with NChillbilly. And Walt also. On this topic only. I had the same experience as well as view point. I have never celebrated ash Wednesday. Or put ashes on my head. I don't seek out symbolism but truth. BION.

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But from a Christian perspective where do we draw the line? A picture of Jesus in your house? A Crucifix hanging in your house? A Crucifix necklace? A fish on your trucks tailgate? Footwashings? Communion? Baptism? Fasting? Lent? Advent rituals?

matt79brown said:

I love Walt1's honesty. Dropping out of religion is like being a convicted felon, marked for life. I was deceived by sin. Some folks have been deceived by religion. I think it's easier to escape the real bad rotten immoral sin life that I came from, than the organized ''we're the ones'' hardcore do good religion.

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I think, at least as I look around from this vessel, and within this vessel, that there's a very serious pressing to apprehend a thing that's sort of off limits. It presses even when I don't know it's pressing, it's always working toward a seeming end in deceit, presenting a thing of filminess as the real for the chasing after. I can't say that I don't fall for it every single time. And the falling for it is always palpable to me, I can't deny.

I think perhaps I see where this thing has taken advantage of a need too deep for me to handle safely, or on my own, but it is always willing to morph itself into a something that looks and presents itself then to me as graspable. And, like I have said, I fall for it.

It's this thing that I am deceived into thinking will tell me, from myself "I am doing things right". Or, in the right way. I need to be right. I need to have, to myself, this knowledge of being right. To be right, in myself. Of myself.

It's pernicious in consequence. For, in the falling I grasp at all the world and drag it down with me...trying to furiously find by hold...something that will stop for me, this dreadful and abysmal falling. I search my practice, my doings to save me...nothing. I plead from all I have done and all the world might have done "to me" for excuse, and all is empty echo. And all the world I drag down with me might just as well not be there, there is no comfort in it, nor fellowship. I cry into the void I only know now I have earned.

I get...stopped. But with this question in form from my catcher.

"Is it right for me to catch you?"

And "how right is it?"

I can only now say how laughably, extravagantly, wonderfully right it is. (At the time, the right and wrong of things kinda takes a blur...I only know thankfully, O so thankfully, the fall was stopped.)

"Do I alone handle you...or do you still need to show to yourself you can handle Me?"

My response in those moments...is simply "stay with me...however that may be possible"

And I see a cost in my plea. That I could never repay. And only bring shame should I try to.


When thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin...

Who hath believed our report?

Simplicity comes to deliver us from the pain inherent in choices...as to whether we "make (or did make) the right one".

I am just beginning to learn this:


Do I prefer the company of the Physician and what his presence manifestly speaks of my condition...or do I want to tell myself "I'm doing alright"? They are exclusive. And when clearly seen in a light not my own, no choice, at all.

Artfuldodger said:

But from a Christian perspective where do we draw the line? A picture of Jesus in your house? A Crucifix hanging in your house? A Crucifix necklace? A fish on your trucks tailgate? Footwashings? Communion? Baptism? Fasting? Lent? Advent rituals?

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John 14:6. It is a personal decision. Every one is created different and are at different levels of spiritually. You have to ask yourself these same questions. Why do you do these things and what does it mean to you? That is what is most important.

matt79brown said:

Martin Luther is the best thing that ever came out of the Catholic Church. Hehehehe. Look that up.

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A Catholic priest by the name of Jan Hus was a heavy influence on Martin Luther.

“One pays for confession, for mass, for the sacrament, for indulgences, for churching a woman, for a blessing, for burials, for funeral services and prayers. The very last penny which an old woman has hidden in her bundle for fear of thieves or robbery will not be saved. The villainous priest will grab it.” Jan Hus

Artfuldodger said:

But from a Christian perspective where do we draw the line? A picture of Jesus in your house? A Crucifix hanging in your house? A Crucifix necklace? A fish on your trucks tailgate? Footwashings? Communion? Baptism? Fasting? Lent? Advent rituals?

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None of which matters one iota if you're heart doesn't strive to continually reflect Christ.