This is a journal entry from Lent last year. Enjoy.

Every Wednesday morning I meet with a group of guys at IHOP. We typically stuff our faces with eggs, bacon, pancakes and lots of coffee. Our conversation is typically on the verge of raucous or profane. Even though we are all church guys and love God, we have all resigned that guys will be guys. In other words, farting and Nascar are typically ideas that are triggered in the same breath. This is not to say we do not talk about God or the Bible. In fact, one of these guys is our worship leader and another is a former minister of 20 years in the Methodist church. If any group has a wealth of spiritual experience with God, it’s this one. What makes it so interesting though is that our conversations that do turn to God or walking with Jesus or our own personal struggles seem to be birthed out of the guttural man language that we have become so accustomed to. Rarely do we come with some agenda or bible verse in hand. Not that having a bible verse is bad, but that’s just not our group. Take for example this morning.

Rob, our worship leader, and I got there early and for the first 20 minutes I downed two cups of coffee and ripped into the train wreck of a service we had last week. He agrees and comments why he was glad he had nothing to do with it. He laughs. I smirk. Danny shows up who is our resident artist and former minister. Danny is always sure to bring up the most unusual stories that spark the kind of conversations that you couldn’t buy from Barbara Walters. Italy was his topic this morning. While working on his Masters degree, Danny and his wife lived in Rome. He relayed how the human butt is considered pornographic in Italy, but that the rest of the body is no big deal. So to walk down a street and glance at a shop window and to see a full frontal view of a naked model was very common. However, if the picture is of the back of the model there would be a piece of cloth draped over her/his backside. Bill then comments how he thinks God is calling him to live in Italy. We all agree. Then the conversation turns to what is acceptable and not acceptable in society. Cussing seemed to be the most obvious choice. Who decided that s%@_t and f*%k are offensive? Benji decided it was France’s fault. I didn’t understand why. But who cares, it’s the French! They hate us anyway. Now of course, as we are saying these words, we feel a little naughty and even dangerous, and then the conversation turns to God and the Bible. We finally conclude that the gospel is offensive enough–it doesn’t need our help as we seek to explore our own vernacular freedom.

Then all of a sudden God showed up. It’s funny how He seems to do that when we least expect him and haven’t necessarily invited him. Now when I say “God showed up” I don’t mean that the IHOP building shook and waitresses lost control of their platters and a train sound funneled through the kitchen. What I mean is, God invaded our very throaty conversation with something of importance. It really all began when Danny arrived at the restaurant. He sat down and began to scribble a square on a piece of paper. For the next 20 minutes he filled it in and then re-filled it in. I just thought he was doodling cause the conversation was lame. However, during the lull of conversation in between why you can say sh_t in New Zealand and did we watch last weeks episode of Prison Break, Danny begins to talk about an ancient tradition in the church. The table falls silent. Could there be a joke in here somewhere? We don’t know. The more he talks though, the more I sense God and substance for life. He begins to share about the 40 days before Easter and it’s an opportunity to fast and experience God in an ancient way in a fast –paced world. So right there, he rubs his finger on that dirty square of graphite dust and he marks our foreheads with the sign of the cross.

Now for the Jewish boy that was converted in a Baptist church who now works in a non-denominational community I felt funny. I had heard about Ash Wednesday. I had even seen people with the ash on their forehead. I remember last year how I tried to wipe that smudge off of a friend’s hairline and he almost flipped out. “Hey man, I thought you missed a spot!” I didn’t get it.

Today though…I get it. We are people that live in a very real world. It is a world filled with disappointment and divorce and pain. But the sign of the cross that remains hours later is not only a reminder of broken lives, it is a reminder of good to come and the good we have been gifted with in Jesus. Somehow that ash, or really the pencil led, is a picture of the redemption that allows us to enjoy each other. In that moment we connected with a future event that took place 2000 years ago. We have been redeemed! The cross on my forehead though is something even more–it is a symbol of pancakes, coffee, friendship and a life worth living together.