It begins in ashes

David Warren: "Ash Wednesday is upon us again ... ."

While we are used to getting the upbeat tone from church leaders in all congregations - that sick-making, public-relations blather I find especially irritating in sellout bishops - the Christian teaching begins instead in that assertion of Christ's. The truth may be extremely uncomfortable, and from many angles desolating, but it must be faced. We cannot build our lives or our churches upon pathetic lies.

For the truth is indivisible. Little truths matter, as well as big. Little sins matter - hypocrisy matters - and the "either/or" is a choice between truth and falsehood, not a catalogue of "lesser evils." The way forward begins in the smallest of truths, in the here and now.

It begins in ashes. Through Lent we are called upon - those who hear the call - to wear the ashes. To wear the truth of defeat and desolation, for there is no other position from which we can hope to rise.