Maggi Dawn contemplates Ash Wednesday's significance:
Acknowledging both the sinful nature of humanity and our own particular flaws may be essential if we’re to escape the arrogance that makes the human heart leaden and ugly, but there’s a fine line between that and the over-emphasis on sinfulness that so easily transforms the lightness of the gospel into the straitjacket of religiosity. How can ashes be, in any sense of the word, redemptive and light?
I think, in fact, that a lightness of spirit is exactly what emerges from the process of facing down our own demons. When we look our mortality in the face, the inevitability of our own death asks of us, “What are you going to do with the life you have?”
The Dish 