ashes to ashes, dust to dump

I think I have made hauling trash into a ritual. Most often, I take our household trash to the Harnett County Landfill on Saturday mornings. I get up, put on my ratty jeans, a t-shirt, and my work boots. I gather the trash from inside the house, bag any loose rubbish from around the garage, load my truck, and head to town. As a habit, I stop at the T-Mart for a country ham and egg biscuit which I eat in the cab of my truck in the parking lot. Most of the time, I do this silently while watching the blue collar folks. They enter for their breakfast, coffee and morning cigarette before heading off to do their Saturday chores or to punch their six-day a week time clock. I then drive to the outskirts of town where the land has to be cheaper the closer it is to the dump. At the scale house, I inform the county employee of my desire to leave my trash in his possession. He checks for my landfill permit and instructs me where to put my trash. With all landfill authority, yet with a hint of mundane repetition, he says, “In the building” or “Box number one.”

The box is preferable to the building since the latter is normally wet and smells exactly like what it contains. There’s a mixture of Tuesday night’s fish and last Sunday’s chicken bones. It’s a stench, a disgusting odor, that no amount of potpourri can redeem. Nonetheless, I drive from the building leaving behind everything I don’t want anymore, everything I can’t keep, and even some things that I’ve held on to for a while, but need to let go. There’s a relief. Relief comes from knowing that the trash is gone from our house, that we don’t have to deal with it anymore, at least until we create more of it. And the ritual repeats itself the next Saturday.

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. Like most of us, I reflect on my sin, the dark side of life, and my need to get rid of some of junk that clutters my life with God. Like taking off the trash, forgiveness has its rituals too. It’s the ways we prepare ourselves to worship, ratty jeans and all. It’s the ways we acknowledge our place in the community with a morsel of bread and sip of wine. It’s the ways we let go of the past and live in the present. These rituals, too, lead us to relief. The relief is in God’s grace. Grace comes from knowing that the sin, the junk, the clutter, and the obstacles, no longer confine us to misery, that we don’t have to deal with it anymore, at least until we create more of it. And the ritual repeats itself…