And the darkness gradually gives way to grey-light and then to back yard green. And the Japanese quince branches that were bare yesterday are bursting with tiny pink buds today. And the hellebores (oh, yes, Lenten roses!) are in full bloom before I even saw them emerge!
Actually we do not come from nothing, and it is not to nothing that return. Only life itself thrives between inception and death. We are made of elements that are part of the universe we inhabit; all that can be found on this earth and came here from throughout the universe. That annual statement we receive as Lenten ashes are imposed on our foreheads may be an effective reminder that what we inherit upon birth was not created by ourselves, and what we do with our lives from that moment until the life force passes from us is something that we are responsible to cherish and cultivate in communion with others. That life lived persists in memory and deed well beyond the moment when breath is no more.
What spoke to me most vividly came out of the last paragraph: Somehow, in this miserable pandemic, this endless season of death, even this dust and ash will become the humus of new life, a recreation of who we are, what we do, and how we love. This Lent, I await the spring rising from the parched ground, and I wonder how we are being fashioned into a new people. I’m looking for water in this land.
I have never been a gardener because of limited time outdoors due to allergies. But the image of humus being the foundation of new life is so clear -- it is the dirt, dust, ash, all of it messy!, that gave me birth into this life, and will again birth me into my completed, final, eternal life. I always hated dirt coming into my home or car, dirty hands or feet. Now I welcome its presence.
Thank you so much for all your inspirations and eloquent writings of them.
This is a very meaningful message for Ash Wednesday. Since celebrating my 80th birthday in July, I find that the certainty of death is always with me. My days on earth are limited and I realize that every single day.
I’m greatly concerned for the nonhumans that share life with us. We must stop using them as things. We are bound together in a web of life and we must learn to value all life.
“If you want to know what a man’s [sic] like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals”. —J. K. Rowling
Thanks, Diana! Your first sentence is the thesis statement for your Ash Wednesday reflection! Just straight to the point in a capsule version! :) PS: In the desert the flowers bloom in a myriad of rainbow colors!
Lent is merely a reminder of that which is always true and evident: Less by death than by life are we daily, eternally surrounded—even better, embraced (the holy palpability of the finger tracing into our forehead the cross is that sacred anointing)—but not without benefit of being reminded of the wonderful vulnerability of being fully human, fully alive, regardless of the circumstance.
Morrie Schwartz, in Mitch Albom’s excellent Tuesdays With Morrie, exhorts us, “Every day, have a little bird on your shoulder that asks, 'Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be? Is today the day I die?’” as with ALS he slowly ebbed away from mortality into the flow of Life.
One of the greatest truths I’ve learned in my 22 years of care as a hospice chaplain is that, though death can kill a body, it cannot take a life. And it’s love that makes the indelible mark of life...every day.
May we not lose the opportunity to remember, and then generously give with deep gratitude. Peace abide...
I think it might be time to do away with Lent. Unfortunately, the church in general has spent far too much time concentrating on sin and repentance and too little time telling us how wonderfully made we are. Jesus said he came so that we might have life--and have it more abundantly. Perhaps he knew what the church would do to believers: force them to concentrate on sin rather than taking joy at our wonderful beingness and loving our neighbors.
Thank you for this timely reflection! I used the spirit of your words for my message to my Church during our Ash Wednesday service.
Ashes also bring about new life. I used Mt. Saint Helens as an illustration of new life rising up out of the ashes... Thank you!
The Genesis 2 reference is a favorite. (That passage was accidentally referenced as Gen. 3) Thank you again for words which inspire, transform and make us think...
It seems to me that I may be the only one who has benefitted from the pandemic. I am disabled in numerous ways and I do get to go for a drive a couple times a month but LIFE IS GOOD. Yes I am looking forward to a vaccine and several other things but lots of things have come my way that I wouldn't have otherwise. I realize that not everyone is as fortunate as me but I am also very positive that being GRATEFUL for what I have goes a long way.
To tell you the truth, I don't know what Lent will mean for me.... saying No to something so that I can say YES to something else. For the past year I have been immersed in God books, sermons, lectures, and videos. I have learned a lot. I am looking forward to more. I don't fell deprived in any significant way.
I so agree! Can we not reframe this 40 days after essentially living Lent for the last year?! Are we be so bound to an aged past that we can't offer a new thing, a new vision, even just a cool drink to help us move through this desert?
Yes. Coming from a Reformed background, I always struggle with Ash Wednesday and Lent anyway. Sometimes I think Lent was a means (as food ran low at winter's end, etc.) of making a virtue out of necessity... but that fits this year. I love your refocus on the awakening and cycle of life... a piece I've always liked in Parker Palmer, too. Thank you, my friend, for just what I needed to hear today!
My sentiments exactly! I did a sharing for Ash Wednesday and said, "I don't know about your but the last 342 days have felt like the 40 days in the desert and I'm not looking forward to 40 more."
After allowing myself to complain a bit, I marshalled my focus to enter into a hand labyrinth practice for 40 days to remind myself that the process of dying (enter in) and rising(exiting) are ever present, yet in the center there is time to pause, let go, recommit and muster all the strength and courage needed to repeat the cycle over and over again.
And the darkness gradually gives way to grey-light and then to back yard green. And the Japanese quince branches that were bare yesterday are bursting with tiny pink buds today. And the hellebores (oh, yes, Lenten roses!) are in full bloom before I even saw them emerge!
Actually we do not come from nothing, and it is not to nothing that return. Only life itself thrives between inception and death. We are made of elements that are part of the universe we inhabit; all that can be found on this earth and came here from throughout the universe. That annual statement we receive as Lenten ashes are imposed on our foreheads may be an effective reminder that what we inherit upon birth was not created by ourselves, and what we do with our lives from that moment until the life force passes from us is something that we are responsible to cherish and cultivate in communion with others. That life lived persists in memory and deed well beyond the moment when breath is no more.
A Blessing for Ash Wednesday
All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners
or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—
Did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?
This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.
This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.
This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.
So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are
but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made,
and the stars that blaze
in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.
–Jan Richardson
What spoke to me most vividly came out of the last paragraph: Somehow, in this miserable pandemic, this endless season of death, even this dust and ash will become the humus of new life, a recreation of who we are, what we do, and how we love. This Lent, I await the spring rising from the parched ground, and I wonder how we are being fashioned into a new people. I’m looking for water in this land.
I have never been a gardener because of limited time outdoors due to allergies. But the image of humus being the foundation of new life is so clear -- it is the dirt, dust, ash, all of it messy!, that gave me birth into this life, and will again birth me into my completed, final, eternal life. I always hated dirt coming into my home or car, dirty hands or feet. Now I welcome its presence.
Thank you so much for all your inspirations and eloquent writings of them.
This is a very meaningful message for Ash Wednesday. Since celebrating my 80th birthday in July, I find that the certainty of death is always with me. My days on earth are limited and I realize that every single day.
I’m greatly concerned for the nonhumans that share life with us. We must stop using them as things. We are bound together in a web of life and we must learn to value all life.
“If you want to know what a man’s [sic] like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals”. —J. K. Rowling
Amen! Amen! Amen!
Thanks, Diana! Your first sentence is the thesis statement for your Ash Wednesday reflection! Just straight to the point in a capsule version! :) PS: In the desert the flowers bloom in a myriad of rainbow colors!
Lent is merely a reminder of that which is always true and evident: Less by death than by life are we daily, eternally surrounded—even better, embraced (the holy palpability of the finger tracing into our forehead the cross is that sacred anointing)—but not without benefit of being reminded of the wonderful vulnerability of being fully human, fully alive, regardless of the circumstance.
Morrie Schwartz, in Mitch Albom’s excellent Tuesdays With Morrie, exhorts us, “Every day, have a little bird on your shoulder that asks, 'Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be? Is today the day I die?’” as with ALS he slowly ebbed away from mortality into the flow of Life.
One of the greatest truths I’ve learned in my 22 years of care as a hospice chaplain is that, though death can kill a body, it cannot take a life. And it’s love that makes the indelible mark of life...every day.
May we not lose the opportunity to remember, and then generously give with deep gratitude. Peace abide...
I think it might be time to do away with Lent. Unfortunately, the church in general has spent far too much time concentrating on sin and repentance and too little time telling us how wonderfully made we are. Jesus said he came so that we might have life--and have it more abundantly. Perhaps he knew what the church would do to believers: force them to concentrate on sin rather than taking joy at our wonderful beingness and loving our neighbors.
Thank you for this timely reflection! I used the spirit of your words for my message to my Church during our Ash Wednesday service.
Ashes also bring about new life. I used Mt. Saint Helens as an illustration of new life rising up out of the ashes... Thank you!
The Genesis 2 reference is a favorite. (That passage was accidentally referenced as Gen. 3) Thank you again for words which inspire, transform and make us think...
Laugh often and Fear not!
David!
It seems to me that I may be the only one who has benefitted from the pandemic. I am disabled in numerous ways and I do get to go for a drive a couple times a month but LIFE IS GOOD. Yes I am looking forward to a vaccine and several other things but lots of things have come my way that I wouldn't have otherwise. I realize that not everyone is as fortunate as me but I am also very positive that being GRATEFUL for what I have goes a long way.
To tell you the truth, I don't know what Lent will mean for me.... saying No to something so that I can say YES to something else. For the past year I have been immersed in God books, sermons, lectures, and videos. I have learned a lot. I am looking forward to more. I don't fell deprived in any significant way.
I so agree! Can we not reframe this 40 days after essentially living Lent for the last year?! Are we be so bound to an aged past that we can't offer a new thing, a new vision, even just a cool drink to help us move through this desert?
Yes. Coming from a Reformed background, I always struggle with Ash Wednesday and Lent anyway. Sometimes I think Lent was a means (as food ran low at winter's end, etc.) of making a virtue out of necessity... but that fits this year. I love your refocus on the awakening and cycle of life... a piece I've always liked in Parker Palmer, too. Thank you, my friend, for just what I needed to hear today!
You hit the nail on the head!!!
I've been feeling the same way. Thank you for giving words for the feelings and thoughts. And to know that I am not alone💗
My sentiments exactly! I did a sharing for Ash Wednesday and said, "I don't know about your but the last 342 days have felt like the 40 days in the desert and I'm not looking forward to 40 more."
After allowing myself to complain a bit, I marshalled my focus to enter into a hand labyrinth practice for 40 days to remind myself that the process of dying (enter in) and rising(exiting) are ever present, yet in the center there is time to pause, let go, recommit and muster all the strength and courage needed to repeat the cycle over and over again.
Thank you for your words! Theresa