“I put Sassy Talking on da cwaaawss,” Eden said while I combed her hair.
She was holding her stuffed puppy who has gone by the names: Shovel, Peanut, Poodle, Coffee Man and Pink House. We thought this strange until we remembered that this is coming from a little girl who answers to: Eden, Beanie, Beansie, Pretty, Baby Cakes, Cakie and Cakie Doo – to name just a few. I assumed “Sassy Talking” was her puppy’s newest sobriquet.
“Where was the cross?” I asked.
“Dey were in da church!” This was said with indignation.
“You put your puppy on the cross in the church?”
“No I put Sassy Talking on da cwaawss!”
And then I realized she said “they” and something clicked.
“Are you talking about when we nailed things to the crosses?”
She nodded, smiling.
On Ash Wednesday there were three humble crosses of 2×4’s placed at the front of our sanctuary. Small pieces of paper and pencils were on every chair. We were invited to write our sins on the papers and then come up and nail them to one of the crosses. I had spoken with the children before we came so we had all been thinking about what God was asking us to surrender.
When it was time we all wrote busily. I asked Eden if she wanted me to write something for her but she was content to clutch her crumpled paper. Our family was one of the first to go. A couple of hammers were lying on the floor as was a box of nails. Paul and Lydia went first. He pounded his near the top and she somewhere in the lower half. They moved on to receive their ashes together. This left me with Eden, Christopher and all our sins. Eden wanted to be held, which I found to be impossible. She clutched my leg while I tried to hold the nail to my paper and hammer and somehow hold her paper too. The nail dropped and with it my sins. Picking them up Eden’s paper fell. I left it and concentrated on getting my paper nailed. All this time Christopher was working on his own. Once mine was up I helped him secure his and then we both got Eden’s up. By this time there was a lengthy line behind us. Watching our shenanigans an elder came over and began to hand people nails. Another came to help with the hammer.
We shuffled over to receive our ashes which Eden politely refused until we had walked away and were almost to our seats. “I want da crawuss.” She whispered.
Well, Sister, you need it, I thought. And so we went back made our way through the line and she bowed her head and looked through her thick eyelashes while the cross of ashes was gently placed.
The sound of pounding echoed through the sanctuary and soon the crosses began to be covered. When everyone had taken their turn our pastor briefly spoke, a small orchestra played, we sang some songs and prayed and then it was done.
Walking up the aisle I turned to look back at the crosses. Volunteers were already stripping off the papers and throwing them in the trash, preparing the crosses for storage. Something in me protested. Couldn’t they leave them for a moment? And then I knew, this is the way it is: we nails our sins to the cross, He does, really, and then they are forgiven and immediately stripped away.
“So you laid Sassy Talking on the cross?”
“Yes.”
“And God forgave you?”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t have to do that anymore?”
“Thass wight.”
Indeed.