The Rev. Tom Warne isn’t too surprised that people are so surprised by “Ashes to Go.”
“People’s perception is that the church stays ‘in there,'” he said on the sidewalk outside the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Vancouver’s Ellsworth neighborhood, on Ash Wednesday. That’s the beginning of Lent, a time of reflection and repentance in many Christian sects that culminates in the Holy Week leading up to Easter. The tradition is to smudge people’s foreheads with ashes in the sign of the cross as a reminder of mortality — and eternity.
But Warne didn’t want to make it too solemn an occasion. “Life is serious enough,” he said. “Let’s make this about joy and love and grace.”
So Warne hung out streetside, offering grins and waves to passers-by, hoping that some would stop for a drive-by smudge and intonation of “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”
