The Time I Tried to Wipe the Ashes Off My Girlfriend’s Forehead

In high school I tried to wipe the ashes off my girlfriend’s forehead. In my defense, I had never heard of Ash Wednesday. My church didn’t do that.

It took me years to find out the church has been keeping a different calendar for well over a thousand years. There’s Advent for waiting and Lent for being honest about what it means to be human. Easter turns out to be fifty days long, and then there’s a long green stretch called Ordinary Time, which is the season we’re in right now. What I love most about it is that the calendar gives you permission to feel different things in different seasons. Not every Sunday has to be a mountaintop. Some seasons are for waiting, some are for grieving, and some are just for showing up and letting the roots grow.

The rest of that story about wiping the ashes off my girlfriend’s forehead, including the first time I was the one putting ashes on people’s foreheads (I had to google what to say), is in Chapter 5 of my book coming out this fall. It’s called A Different Kind of Christian.

Paid subscribers can read that section below. It’s still a draft so you’re getting the rough cut. If this newsletter has meant something to you, upgrading is a great way to support the work and get an early look at the book.

The Examen

This one comes from Ignatius of Loyola, a Spanish priest who lived in the 1500s, and it’s about as simple as prayer gets. Before you get into bed tonight, sit quietly for a minute and replay your day like a movie. Then ask yourself two questions.

• Where did I notice God today?

• Where did I miss God today?

That’s it. You don’t have to come up with anything profound, and some nights the answers will be pretty small. I keep a running list of mine on my phone with the date next to each one, and it’s been so fun to scroll back through the last year and see all the places God showed up that I almost walked right past. Over time this little practice has trained my eyes to notice God in the middle of an ordinary day, which feels just right for this season of the church year.

The Prophetic Imagination by Walter Brueggemann

If you’ve ever wondered what the prophets were really up to, this is the book I’d hand you. Brueggemann wrote it back in 1978 and it’s still one of the most important books on the Hebrew Bible I’ve ever read. His big idea is that the prophets spent their lives helping God’s people imagine a different world. He writes that “the task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us.” What gets me every time is that, for Brueggemann, that work starts with grief. The prophets were willing to cry out loud about what everybody else was pretending was fine, and that honesty is what made room for hope. If you came out of a faith that mostly blessed the way things already were, this book will stretch you in the best way. Brueggemann passed away in 2025, and his voice is one I keep coming back to.

Grab the 40th anniversary edition if you can.

This past Sunday night my wife and I went to a comedy show with some friends, and it was such a great way to close out the weekend. The weather was beautiful and we just laughed and laughed until my abs hurt. I don’t do that nearly enough. And I think here’s something holy about a room full of people laughing together, and I drove home feeling lighter than I had in weeks.

Talk soon. :)