Hearts and Ashes (Six Sentence Story), Good Fences, Sammy’s Poetry Day and Brian’s Thankful Thursday

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"It's an odd thing this year, this collision of Valentine's Day and Ash Wednesday, but in a way, how beautiful, as it's the Incarnation which shows best the heart of G-d."

The Reverend, with an almost beatific smile on her face, spoke about forgiveness, about living in light, about not hiding those things we know we shouldn't have done.

We sang the first 3 verses of "Just As I Am," and did a responsive reading of Psalm 51, the penitent's psalm.

The Reverend put the ashes on us with the words, "Repent and believe the Gospel," which was a refreshing positive change from the more traditional, "Know you are dust and unto dust you shall return."

Then she said, "Since none of us are exempt," and signaled someone in the congregation to come put the ashes on her.

We sang the last two verses of "Just As I Am," the Reverend said, "Remember you've been forgiven so go out there and try not to mess it up, at least for an hour!" and as we all laughed, we were dismissed from what was, for me, a unique and delightful Ash Wednesday service.

Linking up with Denise at Girlie On The Edge Blog, where she hosts Six Sentence Stories, and the cue is Heart.      

(For those who are not familiar with the Christian tradition, yesterday was both Valentine's Day, a day to celebrate love, and Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent with its fasting and penitence.)

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While Good Fences Around the World seems to have gone the way of the dodo bird, i still enjoy looking for and posting interesting fences, so i will!

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It's Angel Sammy's Poetry Day!  This week's image and my poem:    

Sorry, but I gotta say

all's fair in love and war,

and you are trying to keep me from

getting where the treats are!

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Angel Brian's Family of Brian's Home hosts the Thankful Thursday Blog Hop.   It's time to share something for which i am thankful.  

Today i am thankful i got to go to an Ash Wednesday service last night after work at a church just up the highway, as our church has one at noon when i'm at work.

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Today is:

Candlemas -- on the Julian Calendar, and in the Orthodox Christian Churches

Decimal Day -- UK (anniversary of the 1971 currency conversion to the decimal system)

Flag Day -- Canada (Maple Leaf adopted this date 1965)

John Frum Day -- Tanna Island, Vanuatu

Kamakura Matsuri -- Yokote, Akita Prefecture, Japan (Snow Cave Festival; through tomorrow)

Kuromori Kabuki -- Kuromori, Yamagata Prefecture, Japan (traditional Kabuki, through the 17th)

Liberation Day -- Afghanistan

Lupercalia -- Ancient Roman Calendar (remembrance of the she-wolf who suckled Romulus and Remus)

National Gum Drop Day

Nirvana Day -- Buddhist; Jain; Sikh (regional observances may vary)

Remember the Maine Day -- US (remembrance of the Spanish War)

Singles Awareness Day -- although some celebrate on the 14th as an anti-Valentine's Day

Sretenje -- Serbia (National Day)

Stop and Smell Your Compost Pile Day -- snort away the winter blues and think about spring (but i think this one is just plain weird)

St. Sigfrid's Day (Patron of Sweden)

Susan B. Anthony Day -- US (birth anniversary)

Total Defense Day -- Singapore

Birthdays Today:

Amber Riley, 1986

Renee O'Connor, 1971

Jane Child, 1967

Chris Farley, 1964

Matt Groening, 1954

Melissa Manchester, 1951

Jane Seymour, 1951

Marisa Berenson, 1948

Susan Brownmiller, 1935

Adolfo, 1933

Claire Bloom, 1931

Harvey Korman, 1927

Kevin McCarthy, 1914

Irena Sendler,1910

Miep Gees, 1909

Cesar Romero, 1907

Harold Arlen, 1905

John Barrymore, 1882

Ernest Shackleton, 1874

Alfred North Whitehead, 1861

Elihu Root, 1824

Susan B. Anthony, 1820

Charles Lewis Tiffany, 1812

Cyrus McCormick, 1809

John Augustus Sutter, 1903

Henry Engelhard Steinway, 1797

Abraham Clark, 1726

Galileo Galilei, 1564

Pedro Mememdez de Aviles, 1519

Babur, 1483 (founder of Mughal dynasty in India)

Claudius Drusus Germanicus Caesar Nero, 37

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Come Back, Little Sheba"(Play), 1950

"Cinderella"(Disney cartoon), 1950

"The Little Foxes"(Play), 1939

"An der schönen blauen Donau"(The Blue Danube)(Strauss Waltz), 1867

Today in History:

Philosopher Socrates is sentenced to death, BC399

Khosrau II is crowned as king of Persia, 590

Ho-tse Shen-hui, Zen teacher, disputes the founder of Northern Ch'an line, 732

The city of St. Louis, Missouri, is founded by Pierre Laclade Ligue as a French trading post, 1764

The first US printed ballots are authorized, in Philadelphia, 1799

Sarah Roberts is barred from attending a white school in Boston, 1848

Great Ormond St Hospital for Sick Children, London, admits its first patient, 1852

A fire in Rotterdam, Netherlands, damages the Museum Boymans, 1864

American President Rutherford B. Hayes signs a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the Supreme Court of the United States, 1879

Nine inches (23cm) of snow falls on New Orleans, Louisiana, 1898

The USS Maine sinks in Havana harbor, cause unknown-258 sailors die, 1898

The first Teddy Bear is introduced in America, made by Morris and Rose Michtom, 1903

Gerald Lankester Harding and Roland de Vaux begin excavations at Cave 1 of the Qumran Caves, where they will eventually discover the first seven Dead Sea Scrolls, 1949

The Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China sign a mutual defense treaty, 1950

Canada and the United States agree to construct the Distant Early Warning Line, a system of radar stations in the far northern Arctic regions of Canada and Alaska, 1954

A new red-and-white maple leaf design is adopted as the flag of Canada, replacing the old Canadian Red Ensign banner, 1965

The decimalisation of British coinage is completed on Decimal Day, 1971

The 1976 Constitution of Cuba is adopted by the national referendum, 1976

The drilling rig Ocean Ranger sinks during a storm off the coast of Newfoundland, killing 84 rig workers, 1982

The Soviet Union officially announces that all of its troops have left Afghanistan, 1989

At the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in China, a Long March 3 rocket, carrying an Intelsat 708, crashes into a rural village after liftoff, killing an unannounced number of people, 1996

First draft of the complete Human Genome is published in Nature, 2001

YouTube, the Internet site on which videos may be shared and viewed by others, is launched in the United States, 2005

A near-Earth asteroid, 2012 DA14, comes within 17,200 miles of the Earth's surface, a record-close approach for an object estimated at 50 meters, or 160 ft in in diameter, 2013

The Indian space rocket PSLV-C37 successfully launches 104 satellites in a single flight, 2017 

IBU Female Rookie of the Year Hanna Öberg of Sweden wins the individual biathlon gold medal with 4 clean shootings at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in the first victory and podium of her career, 2018

Beijing orders people returning after a Lunar New Year holiday to self-quarantine in an attempt to stop the spread of Covid-19, 2020

In the only podium sweep of the Beijing Winter Olympics, Germany takes all 3 medals in the 2-man bobsleigh, 2022

Scientists warn the Thwaites Glacier (the so-called "Doomsday Glacier") is seriously weakening, 2023