Rend Your Heart, Not Your Garment -By Seye Fakinlede

Let me be the first to welcome you to this year’s Ash Wednesday.

One of the practices I love about the Orthodox churches, and the Lenten calendar, is how the year is apportioned with different events, in order to build up their worshippers. The Ash Wednesday for example, but sadly, it is more of a religious activity rather than a true reflection of an inward repentance.

Ash Wednesday is the first day of lent, and the beginning of a six-week penitence before Easter. It is also a call to humble one’s self towards the coming forty-days fasting, solely trusting in Jesus, to guide for strength. It is also a symbolic call to get rid of all the weights hindering the Christian journey.

The idea of this day is the universal truth because every religion of the world, share a similitude penitence display of an inward sorrow, even though their concept of god, doctrine, and their observation of this may be different, and in most cases re-defined.
And according to the Jewish tradition, the symbolic putting of ash on ones forehead would mean agonizing, because from the scriptures, beloved kings, prophets, “faithfuls”, displayed this whenever they wronged the “Jewish God”.

This and many more confirms that the wearing of ash is an outward display of penitence, which is the supposedly sorrow in the hearts of orthodox congregants.

However, rather than wear this ash religiously wear every year, why not engage in a true repentance and a change of attitude towards reforming our lives, and the nation.

Why not wear true penitence in actively pursuing justice in the country? The country has become so lawless even with the presence of the constitution. We’ve succeeded to handicap our judiciary and deliberately spite at its orders. Why not robe ourselves in a sincere shame?

We’ve all become characters from Williams Golding’s Lord of the Flies. Our ears have been deafened to the cries of the oppressed, and marginalized. Yet, we “Allah akbar” on Friday and “bless the Lord” on Sundays.

We have equate outward look for the heart’s authenticity. Niyi Osundare’s imagery in “The Leader and the Led” best describes the chaotic state of the nation. Yet, we are more composed like a school child at the sight of the cane, hypocrites.

Why wear ash, when we have not actively fight against our truest cancer of corruption; nepotism; religious fanaticism; ethnicity? Our sober display on Ash Wednesday doesn’t mean we have clipped our claws for Thursday. We have forgot that true penitence is never being fanatical in the observation of any religious procedures, nor actively belonging to any of the faith blocs.

Why wear ash, when our lives are no longer safe? Deaths upon deaths. Calamities upon calamities. Security threats upon security threats.

Why wear ash when our educational system is now haunted? An endless lists of sexual assault cases, and its victimization.

Why wear ash when our health facilities are crying for mercy? Sober looks are not true repentance Yee faithful worshipers.

Rather than put the ash on the forehead, put them in the heart, and always remember, a true national repentance is to “rend your heart, and not your garment.”

Happy Ash Wednesday? Okay, same to me.