I love that the thing that we'll do with the ashes tonight at church is called the 'imposition of ashes.' Tonight we'll go forward to have ashes smeared on our foreheads in the shape of a cross, a reminder that we are dust, and to dust we will return. A reminder of our mortality, and of our dependence on God's loving mercy, preeminently displayed on Good Friday, toward which we are now moving. We need to have these things imposed on us from time to time. We need them imposed upon us because we'd like to think we're invincible, and we'd like to think we've got it together on our own, we'd arrogantly like to think that the beginning and end of all that matters is us, humanity. Thank God for this imposition.