"These days, Ash Wednesday is notable as the one day in the year when churches are absolutely packed. It's a phenomenon no one can quite explain. But for some reason, Christians of all stripes, from the passive to the pious, just have to get ashes," Greg Kandra writes on CBSNews.com.

Kandra "set up shop in one of the offices upstairs and invited those interested to come up and get smudged. (Frankly, I felt like a barber, waiting for customers...) About a dozen people wandered in -- including the President of CBS News and CBS Sports, Sean McManus -- and all walked away with the burnt marking on their brows." More...