lenten ketchup

As we prepared to leave the restaurant tonight, Maggie looked up at me and solemnly thanked me for the ketchup bowl. I had to compliment her gratitude before I could give a more simple “You’re welcome.” Her five-year-old sensibilities really are impressive: she was referring to the fact that, when she lamented the lack of a bowl to put ketchup in for fry-dipping purposes, I had emptied my salad dressing container in order to present it to her as a ketchup bowl. Considering the fact that we had just come from an Ash Wednesday service, I find myself amused now at our dinner table conversation about a plan to train poodles to jump through hula hoops . . .
That said, it did not seem incongruous somehow, lack of lenten fasting notwithstanding: it was quite a beautiful service about the importance of fasting for all believers, in an abstaining sense if not specific to physical nourishment. As a tactile person, I was particularly impacted by portion when we proceed up to the front for a forehead cross of ash given by the priest, with a benediction.
Being moved to tears by a liturgical reading one moment to laughing about poodles the next . . . it is all a part of the walk of faith, is it not?