Ash Wednesday 2025
Jack Hardaway
I made a mess.
How do I put it back together?
Is it even possible?
Beyond fixing.
Not so much picking up the pieces as it is starting over.
All those chances to choose love, to explore love, that I missed out on.
Too scared. Too angry. Too clueless. Too busy. Too selfish. Too habituated. Always blaming someone else. Excuses come so easy.
It’s just sin, plain and simple, nothing fancy, just the same old damn thing over and over.
Reveling before whatever golden calf comes along, selling my freedom for a cup of beans.
The power to choose love though, to have that kind of freedom, that would be something.
To be truly that free, that fearless, that alive, to even know what that looks like, how to go about doing that, choosing love.
Well, I’ll just say it’s a long way from here to there.
The freedom that is love.
A wilderness to cross where time just drags on and on.
An exodus.
A time of trial and temptation.
Wilderness.
Can I even get there from here?
They only way to find out is to start and see.
To start.
To begin.
A right beginning.