So I got on the bus today, for the first time since Good Friday, I think. The bus driver saw me, saw my collar, and said, “I remember you (pointing to my collar), we’ve talked about it.” It’s finally Spring, so I couldn’t hide the collar under my winter coat as I’m wont to do if I’m on the bus. But then he said something else.

“That was you out on the sidewalk on Ash Wednesday, wasn’t it?” I said yes. “That’s really cool,” he said, “reaching out to people on the street.”

It’s been almost three months since Ash Wednesday but a bus driver who only saw it as he drove by, and perhaps on the evening news, remembers what we did, and makes a connection for himself, while he also recognizes the potential power of the gesture for other passers-by.

We can never know who we touch, how deeply we touch, and how our actions might be a means for the grace of God to move in the world.