I Want More

I Want More

Once, Eva and I went to the health care unit to serve communion. It was always a meaningful experience. We always saved one room for last. Two elderly ladies, once Southern Belles, occupied it. We knew exactly what was coming.

One of the ladies would cuss us out like a proverbial sailor and make it very clear that she didn’t want any of that “— nasty bread and juice.” We would move to the other side of the room, pray, say the words of institution, and serve her anyway—first breaking off a piece of bread from the homemade loaf. But one piece was never enough.

She would holler for more and even try to grab the loaf. Eva or I would gently explain that one bite of bread was enough, but she didn’t quite understand.

Tonight, I will think of that woman who couldn’t get enough bread.  And I realize that I, too, want more.

I want more ashes on my forehead, because Ash Wednesday is a sobering time of self-reflection—and I have a lot to reflect upon. The ashes are made from the palms we carried in on last year’s Palm Sunday. We go from shouting Hallelujah to hearing, “From dust you have come, and to dust you shall return.”

Bam….We come face to face with our mortality, our fragility, and our broken relationship with God and one another.

Like the lady in the nursing home, I want more. I want to take the jar of ashes home and spread them across my forehead. But one small, dirty cross is enough, because I know that in forty days I will stand before an empty cross—and God will have made me whiter than snow.

Can I get an AMEN?   David