Ashes. Everything is covered in ashes. The water is grey and leaves a gritty film on my teeth. Our food tastes like nothing. When I wake, I rub the grey from my eyes and rise from our grey bed, sending avalanches of grey ash to the ground. The world is dead and yet, here we remain. Waiting in the ashes. Waiting for our end to come as well.
So, it's Lent again. I grew up in a family that had Catholic roots but attended a Methodist church which means that I grew up celebrating Lent. As I've gotten older, I've attended a lot of churches that were either non-denominational or, if not Baptist, Baptist-adjacent. Most of these churches have stepped so far away from liturgical practices and the church calendar that they don't even know what Lent is. But it's still important to me.