So, I, heretical, marginal, free-spirit me, went to mass on Ash Wednesday.  At Saint Matthew's Cathedral in downtown D.C., with a Cardinal presiding.  I, and hundreds of other downtowners.  A holy throng of us filed in, filling every available space in the massive cathedral. 

"This is cool."  I thought.  "Look at all these people.  And I'm just one, solitary soul filing in amid the crush of people. Alone, yet I 'know' these people.  I know what to expect.  They are happy I am here."  And I was glad for my upbringing and my heritage that taught me about this community of believers and their interesting rituals.

There's a little surface irony here, if you contrast my choice to be there in the over-the-top gothic ornate, pomp and circumstance cathedral with my sitting at mass next to Seattle in our little white-washed church last Sunday, telling her I refused to support the bishop's annual Lenten Appeal because I was "mad at him. And, until he lets girls serve on the altar, I'm not giving him any money."  But, it is only surface irony.

I am not an angry Catholic.  When I enter the cathedral and sit amid its grandeur, I'm not brooding over opulence and disconnected clergy, or about archaic laws and injustice or abuse.  I am pretty much inert. I sit, without judgment; with some community memory, and with a benevolent indifference, a blank slate, an empty urn, ready to be written upon, poured into.  I'm happy.

And, I realized the reason for the irony of my going there on my own today.  It is not my solidarity with my church so much as it is my solidarity with my husband.  Being there is a way of being one with, and honoring my dear husband, who is Catholic through and through.  It is just who he is.  He is faithful to it.  He is patient with me and my occasional rantings.  I loved being there "with him" in spirit today.