What's Tony Thinking

Ash Wednesday and “Severance”

Ash Wednesday, this year on March 5, marks the beginning of the 40 day season of Lent.

I did not grow up with Ash Wednesday observance. I’m sure it seemed too Catholic, even “popish,” for my Congregational tribe. But I’ve come to value it. It marks the beginning of this season of the spirit, and we do it collectively, that is, as a community of faith. I suppose some people have self-administered the ashes in the sign of the cross, but by and large, it is something done in public worship, with other people who are also marking the season’s solemn beginning. Moreover, the ashes in the sign of a cross are “imposed” upon us. Our God does “impose” himself upon us, sometimes in ways and times when we least expect it!

The focus of the season of Lent, as of all the seasons of the church year, is Jesus. Specifically, the final days of his earthly ministry, leading to the crucifixion on Good Friday and the resurrection on Easter Sunday. We pay attention to Jesus’ faithfulness and the suffering it brought. We witness his embrace of our human mortality, even unto rejection and death. Which is a way of saying that there is nothing — neither suffering, abandonment, nor death — that can separate us from Jesus Christ our Lord, or from God’s love made manifest in him. So says Paul in Romans 8: 39. “Nothing Shall Separate!” declares Paul.

That strikes me as a good banner over the life of faith and maybe a good theme for Lent 2025. It is a bold assertion. [Nothing] “in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” There’s a defiant aspect to it, which to me is part of faith. “Nothing shall separate!”

Lately, I have — at the prompting of a twenty-something of my acquaintance — been watching the series “Severance” on Apple TV. “It’s all anyone is talking about.” Okay, guess I better check it out. I’m almost through Season 1.

While I’m not entirely sure what “Severance” is all about, this much is clear: the main characters have been separated, severed, from themselves. They have been divided, via a surgical implant, between their work selves (their “innie”) and their non-work selves (their “outie”). When they enter the domain of their employer, Lumon Industries, all memory of their life outside vanishes. And when they leave work, all memory of life inside Lumon is wiped away. “Severed” would be the opposite of integrated.

One way to look at “Severance” is as a commentary on work life in the digital age. “Work” can seem a world apart, quite divorced from the rest of life. Those of us who aren’t part of its more advanced technological forms may have a hard time figuring out what really goes on in that world. While for the contemporary employee, the work world and the home world can seem like two different, largely disconnected, domains. Perhaps re-inforced by post-COVID “return to the office” mandates.

That said, I don’t think this is entirely a new or only a digital age thing. My Dad disappeared every day at 6:30 in the morning and returned home at 6:30 at night. While I knew where he went, as my sister and I did make some holiday season visits to “the office,” I never had much sense of what he was doing when he was there.

But “Severance” also captures the way in which people can feel caught or caught up in some large machine or system, or in a shadowy conspiracy, one they don’t understand and certainly don’t control. In that respect, the show may be a commentary not just on work life, but on life more generally. Some faceless but sinister cabal or power is in charge, pulling the strings.

Again, this isn’t exactly new. The early 20th century Czech novelist, Franz Kafka, in novels like The Trial and The Castle, conjured such worlds, giving rise to “kafkaesque” as an adjective to describe labyrinthine and impenetrable systems or bureaucracies. Or more recently Vaclav Havel’s play “The Garden Party” on life under Soviet Russia.

Where “Severance” seems to be headed — as I say I’m still in Season 1 — is toward a revolt of the powerless against the whole weird enterprise and its compartmentalization and control of their lives. Stay tuned. Instead of the standard sci-fi trope of robots wanting to be human, it’s humans wanting to be human.

Does Paul’s clarion call, “Nothing Can Separate,” have anything to say to us in a world where many feel disconnected, even severed? A world where it can seem there is some sinister, hidden force that has control? It’s not enough to simply dismiss such feelings or ideas. The feelings are real with at least some confirming evidence. And as much as we are told that computers, phones and social media are all about enhancing connections, that isn’t really what they have brought about. Quite the opposite, as far as I can tell.

The origins of word “religion,” comes from a Latin word that means ligature, as in ligaments. They are the things that hold our parts together. Connectors. So connection and community are part of the religious enterprise, and part of what drew me to it.

That also takes us back to my beginning comments, that Ash Wednesday observances, like all of Christian faith, is something done in community, done with other people. In a world threatened by severance, disconnection, loneliness and fear, prioritizing human community, face-to-face gatherings and encounters is important. It may, like Paul’s declaration, “Nothing Can Separate!,” be a Lent/ Easter act of faithful defiance.