Ash Wednesday was observed last night with a profoundly solemn worship service at First Baptist. After Pastor Jim Somerville’s message, attenders were asked to pull a thin, frail sheet of colored paper from their bulletins and write on it the sins they wished to confess to our Lord. We then lined up at the chancel and, one by one, held our transgressions to the flame of a candle, and dropped the burning paper into an urn. Later in the service, those same ashes were inscribed into a cross on our foreheads with the words, “For dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Yeah, all Roman Catholic-like! Gasp!)

I then joined three of the Young Adults’ Ministry for dinner at CPK, stayed too late munching on a caramel sundae, and managed to miss the last MARC train back to Baltimore. Fortunately my uncle and aunt, with whom I lived for the months that I was in DC before school, had a room, where I crashed for the night before returning to work this morning.

Somewhere along the way, I passed by a bookstore and snagged a paperback compilation of all seven Narnia books. I haven’t touched the Chronicles for several years; it’ll be good to read them again.