Palms, Ashes, and What Comes After

Holy Days of Not My Grandmother’s Hymnal

*Content Caution: This week’s reflection includes discussion of sexual violence. Take care of yourself in choosing to read or listen.

Listen to Rebecca read this week’s reflection.

My first vivid memory of Ash Wednesday isn’t from a special service at church, but from what happened after. I was probably 7 or 8 years old. Back home with a smudge of ash on my forehead, my curiosity just wouldn’t quit.

I took an ashtray, emptied out the cigarette butts, and ran a few fingers through the soot. First, I dabbed a little on the back of my hand. It didn’t really stick. I added a few drops of water from the faucet and stirred it with a spoon. All I managed to do was make a smelly mess and get yelled at before bed.

What magic did ministers know that everyday people did not? It wasn’t until seminary that the mystery of Wednesday’s ashes was revealed; they come from Sunday’s palms.

Ash Wednesday, which is today, marks the beginning of Lent in Western Christianity. For many, a period of abstaining and fasting or adding a new practice into daily routines. It’s a somber observance, calling followers to 40 days of repentance and reflection on human mortality.

As I’ve learned more about the roots of Ash Wednesday, and its connection to the politically boisterous branches of Palm Sunday, something in me has shifted. The distance between celebration and sorrow has decreased. The proximity of grief to joy has narrowed. The relationship of death and birth has become more intimate. I’ve become more skeptical of voices shouting about the redemptive refining power of fire without acknowledging how messy ashes are.

In my experience, church folks love to sing and pray about beauty for ashes, citing the prophet Isaiah who connects this exchange with mourning. I have heard very few lift up the story of Tamar, a daughter of King David, as told in 2 Samuel. After being r@ped by her half-brother, she tears her robe, puts ashes on her forehead, and cries out in grief. Phyllis Trible, a feminist Bible scholar, referred to this as a text of terror. Reminding us that Tamar wasn’t only violated by her abuser, but betrayed by an entire system. Tamar’s mourning is not simply for what she has been through, but also for the loss of who she was before. It is hard to find beauty anywhere in that.

Our world is full of individuals, like Tamar, who have experienced sexual violence and are told their pain doesn’t matter, except as a political weapon; who get no justice or reparations; who are taught not to grieve but to repent, made to believe the sin and shame is theirs to carry.

I wouldn’t call it beauty, but if there is a message to be gleaned from Tamar, it is there beneath the rubble and ruins, etched into the fabric of her robe. It is the way she makes visible what so many survivors keep hidden out of fear, exhaustion, shame, and preservation.

Close to 20 years ago, I started a fire to keep things hidden. In an outdoor pit, I slowly built a flame that with careful attention turned into a blaze. Once it was burning, I began feeding it notebooks and journals that held some of most horrific experiences of my life. At the time, believing that turning them to ash was the only path to healing. Thinking that the only means to release those years was to erase them.

The morning after burning those chapters of my life, the pain and shame was actually greater. So was the despair. And hopelessness. I sifted through the still warm ashes and pulled out a piece of spiraled metal that had once bound pieces of me together. What had I done? Was I protecting my heart or others’ reputations? The paper was gone, but not the memories. The pages were charred, but not the impact.

Looking back, I know with a doubt that something changed that day. But it wasn’t the fire that sparked transformation, it was realizing I needed and wanted to be seen and heard. That destroying the files doesn’t delete the truth. Redaction is not redemption.

Today, I hold that old metal spiral and remember what really heals me. It’s naming who I am, where I’ve been, and what I’ve survived. Even when the details are messy and monstrous, there can be beauty in our sharing.

Section 3 of Not My Grandmother’s Hymnal (coming March 10^th) is titled Holy Days. The poems of this section are in conversation with the church calendar. They speak to liturgical seasons.

They ask us to sit with the word holy.
What does it even mean?
How is it measured?
What happens when a person or experience is labeled unholy?
What comes after a holy day ends?
If we’re not transformed by it, why observe it at all?

While there is no specific Ash Wednesday poem, this section of the book is an invitation to think about ashes and beauty and what rises from the fires around and within us. To consider the stories we tell; the stories we make space for; and the stories we attempt to burn into silence.

In the Hebrew language, Tamar’s name means “date palm” or simply “palm tree.” In this sense, Tamar is the personification of Ash Wednesday. The ashes imposed on our flesh come from her, who she was and who she never became, what she endured and what she made known.

As I prepare for the release of Not My Grandmother’s Hymnal, to sharing pieces of my story I once thought needed to be burned away, I am even more grateful for Tamar’s witness and mindful of those whose stories have not been told or have been spoken, yet go ignored.

May Wednesday’s ashes make us curious about Sunday’s palms, all the embers rising between, and what our living looks like after the soot fades away.

Tenderly, Rebecca

Big thanks to everyone who has pre-ordered signed copies of Not My Grandmother’s Hymnal. It is so exciting to see those orders coming in. If you haven’t ordered yet, why wait? Pre-orders made before March 6^th include some special bonus gifts. Visit 10CAMELS.com to make your order today. Or click the photo below to go directly to the 10CAMELS store.