Making soap from ashes (#8)

Apologies to folks who heard much of this on Ash Wednesday. I mentioned the making of soap in another post and thought it wise to fill in the gaps... Sometimes people ask about the purpose of ashes on Ash Wednesday. The short answer is religious people have been marking themselves with ashes and wearing sack clothing for centuries as signs of penance. The longer answer is as dirty as ashes seem, they have played a huge part in making the world clean. Ashes are a key ingredient in the earliest known forms of soap making. I haven’t tried it and have no plans to do so, but making soap is supposed to be pretty simple. The details of making lye from ashes after processing animal fats was a bit, ah, revolting to me, so I’ll give you the quick version. You get some ash, mix it with cleaned fats, and boil them until you get soap. Some chemical process occurs that allows sooty stuff and animal fats to become cleaning agents--an excellent image for being made new again in Christ. Someone suggested that if we imagine Jesus as the agent that starts the chemical process in us, then we can imagine how our sinful natures are made clean through the use of everyday elements in the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion. Lent is a season of renewal and reform. It’s time for searching out our sinful ways and using the strategies God has given us for cleaning up our acts. We begin our Lenten journeys with ashes, one component of the soap making process. Lent is a call to clean up our acts, to sort our dirty laundry, and to turn toward God for the ingredients to make things new again. Lent is also a call to action. God’s love is the agent that reminds us that good works are not done in vain. We are called to give to the poor, to fast from excesses of all kinds, and to seek only God’s approval in the process.