i was doing routine rounds and i met on man in the oncology unit. he was a methodist minister in for chemotherapy. apparently the chaplain had not been to his room or had come by but he wasn't in the room so he hadn't received his ashes. he knew it was ash wednesday. he asked can i have ashes? i said of course, i will get them. i went to the chapel and got ashes and came back upstairs. he had gone around to all the rooms on the unit and he had gotten people to come out of their rooms if they could. he had gotten them in his room. we were all gathered there together. i decided well he is a clergy person too. i will let him administer the ashes and i will be his assistant. so he led ash wednesday service from his bed and applied ashes to all the foreheads of the people there. it was a really profound experience for me as well as for him. what it taught me was that for this man who had been a clergy man all his life serving people in this way was extremely important and he needed to have a way of doing it even if he was just a patient in a hospital bed