“Ashes?”

Rev. Joshua Daniel, a priest at St. Columba’s Episcopal Church, stands outside the Metro station in Tenleytown, greeting commuters. For many of them it’s just another Wednesday morning, and they walk straight on ahead avoiding eye contact.

But for Christians, it’s Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the 40-day period leading up to Easter. It’s what Daniel calls a “time of penitence, of forgiveness and repair, to acknowledge personal and communal sins.” Some pause their brisk walking. They tell him their first names, and Daniel applies ashes to their foreheads in the shape of a cross.

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” he says to them. “Amen,” they say, and go on about their day.

For many Christian denominations, Ash Wednesday is marked with a traditional service or Mass inside a church, at which they receive ashes on their foreheads. But this alternative, “Ashes to Go,” takes just seconds, and is much easier to fit inside a commuter’s busy schedule.

The service has become popular across the country in recent years. A national group organizing Ashes to Go traces the practice back to 2007. At its peak in 2012, more than 80 churches from 21 states took ashes to the streets. Episcopal churches in D.C. were part of the early wave, and Daniel says he believes his church was one of the first.

“There are lots of people who are interested in having some connection with faith and spirituality. And for whatever reason, they have a hard time entering the church’s doors,” Daniel says. “We live in a very busy culture. It’s hard to slow down.”

He says he’d like to be out in the community more often — he enjoys these “momentary connections” with people. Just a few moments earlier, he bumped into one of his daughter’s teachers.

Daniel says passersby won’t “get entangled in some crazy talk.” So don’t expect a sermon: It’s a service that as quick as you need it to be. And he says his ashes might even bring some luck.

“Last year, the entire Jackson-Reed [High School] basketball team came out and I ashed them,” he says. “They went on to almost win the state championship.”

On her way to work, Amy Krumenacker, 27, waits at a bus stop in front of the Tenleytown Target with ashes on her forehead. Growing up Catholic and attending Catholic school, she received ashes every year. This year, though, there were no services in the city that worked with her schedule — finding Ashes to Go was “just a happy circumstance,” she says. “I hopped off the Metro and saw a priest giving out ashes.”

It was her first time receiving ashes in this way. “The service was quick. But we really connected,” Krumenacker says.

Behind her, Rev. Ledlie Laughlin, rector of St. Columba’s, is giving ashes to go to commuters passing through Metro escalators under the Target.

It’s a slower Ash Wednesday than usual, he says — maybe because D.C. Public Schools are off throughout this week. He says some people see their Ashes to Go sign and make a point of steering clear.

Others come, close their eyes, and smile. One of the last people he imposes ashes on that morning is a parishioner he knows. But the vast majority are strangers. It’s a moving experience, Laughlin says.

“It’s remarkable how intimate the exchange is in the middle of a city street between two complete strangers,” he says. “It inspires me to seek additional ways that the church — locally and more broadly — can get outside its own doors and meet people where they are, rather than waiting for everybody to show up.”

St. Columba’s Episcopal Church will have additional Ashes to Go shifts from 3:15 to 4 p.m. and 5 to 6 p.m. on Wednesday.

This post has been updated to correct the spelling of Rev. Ledlie Laughlin’s name.