Breaking Bad.

Breaking Bad

If you're not watching this, you're missing the best show to debut this season. Part Tarantino, part Sopranos, part "My Science Project," Breaking Bad is the grossest, funniest, saddest, most entertaining thing that could be found during the writer's strike.

Great acting, great production design, and EXCELLENT writing guarantee that this show will not disappoint...my only fear is that it will get canceled due to lack of viewers, or its highly controversial subject matter.

I'm not giving anything else away. You'll have to watch.

Lent. Dust. Life.

We're dust. And we'll return to dust. And we should remember that.

What does wearing a smudge of ashes on your forehead have to do with remembering that, in the end, you're worm food?

I took the "imposition" of ashes today, a practice in which I've never felt fully comfortable. I got back to work and wiped them off. I felt that it was too distracting for other people in the office. And because I was remembering that I return to dust, I was respecting that my co-workers will one day, too, and I shouldn't trouble their 8-5 life with that dirt on my forehead.

But it was more than having people stare at me and being uncomfortable with their judgments in the Baptist, er, Bible...I don't know, snake-handling belt? Anyway...

Ultimately, the Gospel reading was what really got to me. It was Matthew 6--The Sermon on the Mount. It was the part about being on the street corner versus praying in private and not letting the right hand know what the left hand was doing.

That thing about the ashes on the forehead...well, to me it is about the same as the guy standing on the street corner that Jesus was describing, acting like he really loves God, but standing there more to influence his fellow humans than to show love for God.

So, because I follow Jesus, I wiped the ashes off of my forehead after really considering what it was he was trying to say. And I thought about what I should do in my private life that would be an even better expression of the knowledge of my mortality, the inconstancy of life in general, and how life is the ultimate gift.

I will continue to think about this stuff, like I always do.