For only the fifth time this century, Ash Wednesday shares the same date as Valentine’s Day, and the two will coincide only once more for the remainder of the 21st century.
Madison Boboltz
There is something strangely beautiful and paradoxical about these rare occasions during which we observe Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday alongside one another. On the one hand, we celebrate those loving relationships that make our lives worth living. And on the other, we are reminded of our human mortality: “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” We hold fast to love, even as we confront the reality of death.
For some, regardless of where Ash Wednesday falls, Valentine’s Day always will be tainted with reminders of death. Feb. 14, 2024, marks the sixth anniversary of the school shooting that took place in Parkland, Fla. This massacre in 2018 resulted in the death of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. What should have been a day filled with learning and exchanging sentiments of love instead evolved into a day filled with terror, violence and trauma.
Doom scrolling
I was in my second year of college when the news broke. My friends and I lamented the tragedy, voiced some righteous anger about living in a country that cares more about protecting guns than children, then followed through on our evening plans to share store-bought cheesecake and watch Dirty Dancing.
“I could not stop consuming this firsthand footage as it was released on the internet.”
But in the weeks that followed, I fell victim to doom-scrolling, or the practice of binging distressing news online. Because the Parkland students owned smartphones, many of them recorded their experiences trembling under desks as they heard gunshots in the hallway just outside their classroom doors. I could not stop consuming this firsthand footage as it was released on the internet. I ignored the trigger warnings and lay in my bed with tired eyes peeled open, recounting each of the times growing up I crouched with classmates in a corner during a lockdown, knowing the threat was likely out of reach, but still wondering where my younger sister was and if she was OK.
Eventually, I realized the negative toll this graphic media consumption was taking on my mental health, and I was grateful to see surviving students respond in a more constructive manner. They founded the movement March for Our Lives to advocate for gun violence protection laws across the country. I felt pride in our nations’ youth for taking such courageous action in the aftermath of trauma, and I felt ashamed of the prominent public figures who not only patronized these children but took to bullying and harassing them both in-person and online.
My own resolve to join their efforts was strengthened.
Six years later, I watch online as the survivors of Parkland graduate college and grow into young adults. I wonder what Valentine’s Day means for them now — if they are able to enjoy the romantic festivities, or if they are still haunted by the loss of life and innocence they witnessed and experienced that day.
I wonder what it might mean for them to get through this dreaded holiday and anniversary — bombarded by flowers, love poems and candied hearts — and encounter the stark contrast of people going about their day with ashen crosses marking their foreheads. What might it mean for them to see these visible markings and know that, even amidst celebrations of love, they are not alone in acknowledging and processing their heavy emotions surrounding death?
Rhythms of Lent
One of Christianity’s greatest assets is the liturgical calendar, and I find special significance in treating the rhythms of Lent and Holy Week as a template for responding to the various forms of violence and injustice witnessed and experienced in our world.
Every year during this time, we commemorate the trial, suffering and death of Christ. We embody parts of the story through the waving of palm branches, the washing of feet and the sharing of the Lord’s Supper. We light candles and hold vigils. We read Scripture and sing. We strip the altar and depart Good Friday services in solemn silence. And every year, no matter how many times I have revisited the story, I experience the same waves of shock, anger and grief the story elicits. Rather than repress these emotions, I join my community as we lean into them and let them work on us.
When handled with grace and care, these communal rituals and narrations of the Cross model healthy practices for commemorating violence and injustices of all sorts. They challenge me to look at the world around me and notice the ways the story of the Cross has played itself out time and time again. I grieve the suffering and death of Jesus, and I grieve the suffering and death of all who are taken from this world too soon.
Of course, with the celebration of Easter, we commemorate Christ’s resurrection. We celebrate the perseverance of love and hope, and the mysterious promise of life after death. But we take our time in getting to this promise. We practice losing our hope and finding it again. We practice saying goodbye to Love only to have it come knocking back at our door, open wounds and beating hearts and all.
“This side of heaven at least, resurrection is earned.”
In revisiting this story which so profoundly speaks to the truth of the human experience, I have learned that, on this side of heaven at least, resurrection is earned. It is earned in the weeping, and in the preparing of the body for burial, and in those early morning visits to the tomb. It is earned when we rightfully repent of the parts we have played in sanctioning and perpetuating harm against our neighbors. It is earned each and every time we resolve to go on living and breathing, even when all seems lost. It may take longer than three days, but if we are so courageous as to show up in the aftermath of tragedy, then eventually, like the women in the Gospels, we might be uniquely positioned to witness the first fruits of resurrection hope.
Roses and ashes
Back in the spring of 2018, I was walking on the treadmill in my school’s fitness center when I saw a clip of the news showing Parkland students returning to school a few weeks after the shooting. They were surrounded by a heavy police presence and a ton of news cameras, which obviously added to their anxiety, but as they got closer to the building, they were greeted by therapy dogs, and each student was handed a rose.
I am not sure what that small gesture meant to them, or if it helped at all, but I find holy significance in imagining these students returning to the hallways and classrooms that had become stained with the memory of terror and death, armed at the very least, with these floral symbols of life and love which they could keep for themselves, or place on the desks of their departed friends, promising to remember them always. In fear and trembling, these students embodied resurrection hope, even if they could not yet feel it for themselves.
This year, on Feb. 14, some of us will receive roses. Some of us will receive ashes. Some of us will receive both. I hope the holy significance of neither is lost on any of us.
Madison Boboltz is a graduate of Hardin-Simmons University, where she studied religion and psychology, and Boston University School of Theology, where she earned the master of divinity degree in 2023. She serves as a pastor in the United Methodist Church, currently at First UMC Arlington, Texas, as associate pastor of adult formation.