Every year at the Ash Wednesday Mass, as I’m in line to be reminded of my death, I find myself running my hands through my hair, gently checking to make sure it’s well-parted — with more than enough space for the priest to leave a clear, symmetrical mark. On my way out, I make sure to pull out my phone (I’ve put it on a black-and-white setting, of course), open up the camera, and check my ashes. Do they look like a cross? Are they noticeable? Will they make it through the day?

What a fitting way to realize my own mortality…

Lent is a beautiful season — it’s a chance to let go of misplaced attachments, begin again, and rededicate our lives to God and our neighbor. Too often, though, we use it as a chance to widen our phylacteries and lengthen our tassels. Sometimes, Lent can be about performing our Catholicity: about showing, often to ourselves, that we’re the real Christians — and they’re not.

We abstain from meat on Fridays. (They don’t.)

We give up something for Lent. (They don’t.)

We’re the real Christians. (They’re not.)

 Sometimes, we’re a little too clever for that to work. So the vanity reads a little bit differently:

 They’re only in it for the ashes. (We’re not.)

They’re giving up chocolate for Lent. (My fasting is “deeper.”)

They’re vain and pompous. (I’m thoughtful and reflective.)

In the first level, we think we’re better because of the tassels and the phylacteries. In the second, we think we’re better because we’ve shunned them. In both cases, however, we insist on policing the boundaries between who’s a “good Catholic” and who isn’t. This is toxic, because our Christianity is no longer defined by our relationship with Christ, so much as our relationship with them. We no longer believe in something; we believe we’re better than something else.

Once we’ve begun drawing those lines of separation, things go downhill really fast. Not only do we think we’re better than them, we stop trying to empathize altogether. Indeed, we may even find other people with whom we can snicker about them. This is how scapegoating begins. And it ends at the foot of a Cross, with an innocent man hung to death.

The irony is this — as I write these words, I’m thinking about other types of people. You know, them.  That’s how deeply ingrained the scapegoat mechanism is in the human psyche. I rave and I rave, but at the end of the day I’m doing the very thing I warn about — and participating in the same processes that others use against me.

Stones. Glass castles. Phylacteries. Tassels.

If Lent is to teach us anything, it is this: we have to find a way out — together. Me and you. Us and them. Brothers.