Shrove Tuesday
Tomorrow, Ash Wednesday, marks the beginning of Lent. Many of us will attend a church service in which ashes are marked upon our foreheads. We will hear the traditional Ash Wednesday litany that reminds us, “Remember, from dust you have come, and to dust you shall return.”
I will be with the Senior Pastor of First United Methodist Church of Rogers, wearing a ministerial robe and clerical stole, standing in 36 degree temperatures, waiting in a parking lot in Downtown Rogers, Arkansas, to impose ashes on the foreheads of those who drive by.
The car pulls up. “What is your name?”
“Maria.”
“Maria, remember your creation in God . . . from dust God created you . . . and remember your humanity . . . to dust you shall return.” The car drives away.
It seems a bit mundane, imposing ashes as people pull up in their cars, rather than in the formality of an Ash Wednesday service in a beautiful Chapel somewhere.
Yet, what better way to remember our humanity, to be reminded of our clay feet, than in the run of everyday life?
“Honey, I’m running to the grocery store and the post office. And oh, between, I’m stopping to get marked with ashes.”
It’s a powerful symbol of one central aspect of our humanity, the “dust” that will always be part of who we are.
“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” is simply a formal way to say, “You’re human and always will be, so don’t forget it!”
Too much perverted spirituality claims you can rise above your humanity . . . that spiritual practices can root out your human nature permanently . . . that you can overcome your humanity and rise to some exalted spiritual sphere where you don’t have to deal with everyday life any more.
In fact, that very illusion is carried by many who embark on an intentional spiritual path. They want to eradicate their impulses to control and envy and greed. They want a check on their egocentric longings and manipulations. They want to be better. They want to move beyond “sin.” The motive may be sound, but no matter how hard we try, we will never escape our humanness.
Lent begins with this reminder of our humanity. We are human. Dust. Clay. Too often weak and conflicted.
But we are also created in God’s image, created with God’s own DNA woven into our being, created for union with God, created to live in the fullness of our God-connection.
It is important that Lent begins this way . . . with this reminder of our humanity. Many of us take up some special practice for Lent, or we step into Lent intending to fast something . . . food or drink or a compulsive habit.
Some of us, for example, will vow to give up sweets, or more specifically chocolates, for Lent. Or we give up some kind of drink, perhaps alcohol. Or, if our own anger or envy is a particular issue for us, we will give up an afflictive emotion for Lent.
I realize that often I give up something for Lent that seems rather inconsequential. I can easily give up sweets, including chocolate, for Lent and will it come as no great sacrifice for me. Even something which comes nearer to addiction – my morning cup of coffee or evening glass of wine – still seems to be skimming the surface of Lent’s intention.
While there is something to be said for any form of fasting in which we say, “No!” to ourselves, there are some practices that seem to touch us more deeply than others.
Honestly, sometimes I wonder if we undertake practices for Lent that are more inconvenience than actual fasts because we want to do something for Lent at which we can succeed. Afraid that we might bale out three days into fasting some weightier afflictive emotion or addictive obsession, we opt for the thing we can accomplish, the fast at which we can succeed.
“How could I possibly tame my ego or lay aside my pride for seven weeks?”
“What would life be like if I didn’t have to worry all the time?”
“It is not possible for me to go a day without judging someone else.”
“I could not possibly spend 40 days without being critical, so why begin . . . why even try?”
We miss the point. Lent begins with this simple, earthy affirmation of our humanity: “You are dust” . . . loved dust, cherished dust, beyond-all-worth dust . . . but still, dust.
The point is not that you will mess up, that you will fall short. That is assumed already. The point is that you acknowledge when you do stumble . . . that you learn something about yourself, and about yourself in God, and about yourself in relation to others . . . that you get back “on the bicycle” after you fall and then keep going . . . that you find yourself loved and beheld, even as you fall . . . and that through it all, you come to experience that no amount of human failure can disqualify you from love.
If you begin Lent truly hearing and believing that you are dust, beloved dust, then you can go ahead and take on the improbable or the impossible in your life . . . you can endeavor to address the thing that most holds you in its grasp, knowing that no matter each Lenten day’s outcome, you are never disqualified from the journey and never outside the reach of love.
The visitor asked the monk, “What do you do here at the monastery all day long?”
The elder monk replied, “We fall down and get up . . . fall down and get up . . . fall down and get up.”
Showing posts with label Ash Wednesday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ash Wednesday. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 5, 2019
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Snow and Ash: An Ash Wednesday Poem by Steve Garnaas-Holmes
I've recently found the work of Steve Garnaas-Holmes through some friends who regularly forwarded his poetry and psalm-work to me. His website is www.unfoldinglight.net. Steve will also add you to his daily mailing list if you you'd like.
His work has touched me, and this morning's poem is beautiful.
SNOW AND ASH
This snow, deep but fine like ash
drifting over your sidewalk
will be gone in weeks.
But you shovel it today anyway
because today you need to walk out of your house.
You shovel it while it is snow
before it is regret.
Before it melts
this short life is yours
to choose well with,
what to shovel, what not to shovel.
Hard to do, to put your shoulder
to the work of compassion
when you could stay in.
So many conflicting winds
would drift your life
into ruinous places.
Only the warm energy of life
guides you, carving out
this path and not another.
Mortal,
pause amidst your labors,
and receive the grace you need.
Remember you are snow,
and to snow you shall return.
--Steve Garnaas-Holmes (www.unfoldinglight.net)
His work has touched me, and this morning's poem is beautiful.
SNOW AND ASH
This snow, deep but fine like ash
drifting over your sidewalk
will be gone in weeks.
But you shovel it today anyway
because today you need to walk out of your house.
You shovel it while it is snow
before it is regret.
Before it melts
this short life is yours
to choose well with,
what to shovel, what not to shovel.
Hard to do, to put your shoulder
to the work of compassion
when you could stay in.
So many conflicting winds
would drift your life
into ruinous places.
Only the warm energy of life
guides you, carving out
this path and not another.
Mortal,
pause amidst your labors,
and receive the grace you need.
Remember you are snow,
and to snow you shall return.
--Steve Garnaas-Holmes (www.unfoldinglight.net)
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Ash Wednesday Dust and Constellations
A short rabbinic saying claims that every human being lives out of two pockets. In one pocket there is a message that says, "You are dust and ashes." In the other pocket, the message says, "For you the universe was made."
I love the pairing of the two pockets, the willingness to put together two things that seem to be at odds . . . then the chutzpah to invite us to live into the tension of both pockets at the same time.
One pocket acknowledges that I am created in God and for God. It recognizes that I live in continual connection with God, whether I am aware of that connection or not. I am not stamped, "Condemned!" as a human failure, but rather am created by God in blessing for blessing.
Even more, within every human person there is the image of God. It may feel to some as if that image is hidden within, but every person has something of the likeness of God within them.
And this interior connection with God cannot be severed or broken. It is resilient, and it gives to your life purpose and destiny shaped by your Creator.
Further, out of this deep interior God-connection, every human being has gifts to share with the world, things that are unique. And these gifts are meant to be spent on the world. In fact, if we don't spend our unique gifts on the world, the world will never see them. Either we share them, or we hoard them (and eventually lose them).
I refer to this as the CONSTELLATION POCKET. You are so valuable, the rabbis said, "For you the universe was made!" God created constellations for you!
We also have another pocket with another message. I was formed from the dust of the earth. My beginnings were dust and at my ending I will return to the dust.
I have limits and weaknesses. I am broken and flawed. I have what people today call, "issues." I am not complete, and in my lifetime will never be complete or whole. There will always be something unhealed within me, some life-project to which I must attend.
My dust is my humanity. I am a human being, not God. And life comes, not in denying that humanity, but in living fully into it.
This is the DUST POCKET, the pocket of humanness, brokenness and limitation. It is not bad. It is not a pocket to be ashamed of. It is the pocket of our humanity.
To live only out of the constellation pocket is to become ego-centric and inflated, to view the world only as it revolves around me and concerns me.
To live only out of the dust pocket is to live in shame and perversity. You can never be good enough, never accomplish enough, never be perfect enough. You live as a sinner, as someone fatally flawed who needs to be fixed. This is the starting place for a lot of what passes for religion -- and it's been the starting place within institutional religion for centuries. Honestly, the message that many of us have received from the Church for centuries has been that we are bad, flawed, doomed and unlovable. [As a youth, I cut my teeth in the Church on the old hymn, "At the Cross," which reminded me that I am a "worm" and a "criminal.") This is the end-result of a dust-only pocket.
But we are not invited to an either-or choice, as if we could choose only dust or only constellations; rather, we are invited to live the tension of both-and. That is, we acknowledge that we have a foot in both worlds, in both our God-connected giftedness and our human limitations. We are not one or the other, but both. The invitation is to live fully in both realms. The glory of God, after all, is the human person fully alive (St. Irenaeus, 2nd century).
So I said some of these things today at an Ash Wednesday service in Houston, Texas. I used the rabbinic saying, then talked about DUST POCKETS and CONSTELLATION POCKETS. I invited persons to live the tension of both pockets through the season of Lent. But none of that would have been particularly memorable without what happened next.
The traditional Ash Wednesday service ends with those present having a cross marked on their foreheads in ash. In my tradition, we come forward to receive Holy Communion, then receive the ashes on our heads with these words: "From dust you have come and to dust you will return." For centuries, I suppose, these words have been offered as the ashes have been imposed on foreheads. The words along with the ashes are reminders of our humanity, our frailty, and the shortness of our days. Here at the outset of Lent, they are a further symbol of the earnestness of this 40-day journey with Jesus. That's our tradition, hundreds of years old.
In planning for today, I wondered about doing something nontraditional along with the traditional. So after my talk, I encouraged people to come for Communion and the ashes, and reminded them that the person imposing the ashes would mark their foreheads and say to them, "You are dust and ashes."
Then I changed the script. "Today, though, after you have been marked with ashes and someone has reminded you that you are dust and ashes, look at them and say back, 'And for me the constellations were made!'" It's not exactly a part of the Ash Wednesday liturgy, but it's another pocket that needs to be spoken. Even with my invitation, I really didn't know if anyone would actually say the words.
I stood in front of the altar rail beside two friends who were offering the Bread and the Cup. One by one I offered ashes to those who came through the line. To each one, I said, "You are dust and ashes," as I marked their foreheads with a cross.
And with only a couple of exceptions, these brave souls looked at me and said, "And for ME the constellations were made!"
Some spoke the words boldly, and some offered them timidly.
Some said them as if they still were not convinced that constellations had been made for them, but they took the risk to speak the words, anyway.
Others seemed surprised to hear themselves say out loud something they had never considered before.
Several broke into tears as they said the words.
It was the most poignant, humbling 7 minutes I've experienced in a long, long time.
I reflected on the experience in the hours after. To be honest, I felt something like a villain, like the person chosen to play the role of Judas Iscariot in the once-a-decade presentation of the Passion Play. I found myself increasingly uncomfortable with the "role" I played in this symbolic "drama" . . . it's almost as if I were speaking for the Church, for centuries of the Church reminding people of their dust and ashes, reminding people of their limitation and frailty, marking people as sinful and flawed . . . all without speaking of the other pocket.
"You are dust and ashes," the Church has said to us for so many years, and it has seldom opened to us the other pocket.
"You are dust and ashes," we have heard, and it has been all we've known to believe.
So today I stood in for the Church. I said the Church's words and I played the role that may be all too commonplace for the Church: "You are dust and ashes."
Thankfully, there were some courageous souls who decided, for at least one moment in time, to live out of their other pocket as well. "And for me the constellations were made!"
You could almost hear chains dropping.
I love the pairing of the two pockets, the willingness to put together two things that seem to be at odds . . . then the chutzpah to invite us to live into the tension of both pockets at the same time.
One pocket acknowledges that I am created in God and for God. It recognizes that I live in continual connection with God, whether I am aware of that connection or not. I am not stamped, "Condemned!" as a human failure, but rather am created by God in blessing for blessing.
Even more, within every human person there is the image of God. It may feel to some as if that image is hidden within, but every person has something of the likeness of God within them.
And this interior connection with God cannot be severed or broken. It is resilient, and it gives to your life purpose and destiny shaped by your Creator.
Further, out of this deep interior God-connection, every human being has gifts to share with the world, things that are unique. And these gifts are meant to be spent on the world. In fact, if we don't spend our unique gifts on the world, the world will never see them. Either we share them, or we hoard them (and eventually lose them).
I refer to this as the CONSTELLATION POCKET. You are so valuable, the rabbis said, "For you the universe was made!" God created constellations for you!
We also have another pocket with another message. I was formed from the dust of the earth. My beginnings were dust and at my ending I will return to the dust.
I have limits and weaknesses. I am broken and flawed. I have what people today call, "issues." I am not complete, and in my lifetime will never be complete or whole. There will always be something unhealed within me, some life-project to which I must attend.
My dust is my humanity. I am a human being, not God. And life comes, not in denying that humanity, but in living fully into it.
This is the DUST POCKET, the pocket of humanness, brokenness and limitation. It is not bad. It is not a pocket to be ashamed of. It is the pocket of our humanity.
To live only out of the constellation pocket is to become ego-centric and inflated, to view the world only as it revolves around me and concerns me.
To live only out of the dust pocket is to live in shame and perversity. You can never be good enough, never accomplish enough, never be perfect enough. You live as a sinner, as someone fatally flawed who needs to be fixed. This is the starting place for a lot of what passes for religion -- and it's been the starting place within institutional religion for centuries. Honestly, the message that many of us have received from the Church for centuries has been that we are bad, flawed, doomed and unlovable. [As a youth, I cut my teeth in the Church on the old hymn, "At the Cross," which reminded me that I am a "worm" and a "criminal.") This is the end-result of a dust-only pocket.
But we are not invited to an either-or choice, as if we could choose only dust or only constellations; rather, we are invited to live the tension of both-and. That is, we acknowledge that we have a foot in both worlds, in both our God-connected giftedness and our human limitations. We are not one or the other, but both. The invitation is to live fully in both realms. The glory of God, after all, is the human person fully alive (St. Irenaeus, 2nd century).
So I said some of these things today at an Ash Wednesday service in Houston, Texas. I used the rabbinic saying, then talked about DUST POCKETS and CONSTELLATION POCKETS. I invited persons to live the tension of both pockets through the season of Lent. But none of that would have been particularly memorable without what happened next.
The traditional Ash Wednesday service ends with those present having a cross marked on their foreheads in ash. In my tradition, we come forward to receive Holy Communion, then receive the ashes on our heads with these words: "From dust you have come and to dust you will return." For centuries, I suppose, these words have been offered as the ashes have been imposed on foreheads. The words along with the ashes are reminders of our humanity, our frailty, and the shortness of our days. Here at the outset of Lent, they are a further symbol of the earnestness of this 40-day journey with Jesus. That's our tradition, hundreds of years old.
In planning for today, I wondered about doing something nontraditional along with the traditional. So after my talk, I encouraged people to come for Communion and the ashes, and reminded them that the person imposing the ashes would mark their foreheads and say to them, "You are dust and ashes."
Then I changed the script. "Today, though, after you have been marked with ashes and someone has reminded you that you are dust and ashes, look at them and say back, 'And for me the constellations were made!'" It's not exactly a part of the Ash Wednesday liturgy, but it's another pocket that needs to be spoken. Even with my invitation, I really didn't know if anyone would actually say the words.
I stood in front of the altar rail beside two friends who were offering the Bread and the Cup. One by one I offered ashes to those who came through the line. To each one, I said, "You are dust and ashes," as I marked their foreheads with a cross.
And with only a couple of exceptions, these brave souls looked at me and said, "And for ME the constellations were made!"
Some spoke the words boldly, and some offered them timidly.
Some said them as if they still were not convinced that constellations had been made for them, but they took the risk to speak the words, anyway.
Others seemed surprised to hear themselves say out loud something they had never considered before.
Several broke into tears as they said the words.
It was the most poignant, humbling 7 minutes I've experienced in a long, long time.
I reflected on the experience in the hours after. To be honest, I felt something like a villain, like the person chosen to play the role of Judas Iscariot in the once-a-decade presentation of the Passion Play. I found myself increasingly uncomfortable with the "role" I played in this symbolic "drama" . . . it's almost as if I were speaking for the Church, for centuries of the Church reminding people of their dust and ashes, reminding people of their limitation and frailty, marking people as sinful and flawed . . . all without speaking of the other pocket.
"You are dust and ashes," the Church has said to us for so many years, and it has seldom opened to us the other pocket.
"You are dust and ashes," we have heard, and it has been all we've known to believe.
So today I stood in for the Church. I said the Church's words and I played the role that may be all too commonplace for the Church: "You are dust and ashes."
Thankfully, there were some courageous souls who decided, for at least one moment in time, to live out of their other pocket as well. "And for me the constellations were made!"
You could almost hear chains dropping.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Lent Begins Ash Wednesday
The season of Lent is the 40-day journey that leads to Holy Week, Good Friday and Easter. It invites us to an intentional journey with Jesus, who early in his ministry spent 40 days in the wilderness fasting, praying and communing with God before his public ministry. During his time in the wilderness, Jesus was tempted by Satan, the Adversary, and his identity as the Son of God was confirmed within him.
During Lent we walk with Jesus through this wilderness. We travel lighter. We may choose to fast regularly, or to adopt different prayer practices for the duration of these days. Those who step into Lent generally will begin with some intention, some spiritual practice that will help tend them through the season.
Lent begins tomorrow on Ash Wednesday. In Ash Wednesday services around the world, persons will be marked on their foreheads with a cross of ashes as a symbol of our humanity and our intention for the Lenten season.
I have another blog on which I will provide a daily scripture reading for that day in Lent. To the scripture passage I will add a very brief meditation thought that might be used in your prayer, meditation or reflection time. I've offered these reflections for three years now, and I call them, "A Daily Lent." Those postings will begin tomorrow at this web address:
www.dailylent.blogspot.com
You might also be interested in another daily Lenten resource compiled by The Center for Christian Spirituality and Chapelwood United Methodist Church in Houston, Texas, USA. This online resource will provide you with a poem-a-day throughout Lent, along with a suggestion for prayer and reflection. A different poem will be posted each day of Lent and Holy Week.
You can find this online poetry resource, called, "A Lenten Mosaic," at this web address:
www.chapelwood.org/lent
Finally, you might find it helpful to adopt a spiritual practice for the season. What discipline or prayer practice might sustain you through the season? Or even better, what might help you be more attentive to the voice of God as you journey through Lent? Be prayerful as you discern what practice you might adopt. Allow God's Spirit to direct you to what will be appropriate for you this season.
Don't try to copy anyone else. Don't mimic someone else's practice. Do what fits you. And then see it through for the 40+ days.
So step into the day tomorrow. Pack lightly. Take one or two tools with you, tools that will sustain you through your desert journey. Most of all, spend the days attentive to God's Spirit, light on your feet, responsive to the continual presence of God. That, after all, is what Lent is about.
I look forward to making the journey with you.
During Lent we walk with Jesus through this wilderness. We travel lighter. We may choose to fast regularly, or to adopt different prayer practices for the duration of these days. Those who step into Lent generally will begin with some intention, some spiritual practice that will help tend them through the season.
Lent begins tomorrow on Ash Wednesday. In Ash Wednesday services around the world, persons will be marked on their foreheads with a cross of ashes as a symbol of our humanity and our intention for the Lenten season.
I have another blog on which I will provide a daily scripture reading for that day in Lent. To the scripture passage I will add a very brief meditation thought that might be used in your prayer, meditation or reflection time. I've offered these reflections for three years now, and I call them, "A Daily Lent." Those postings will begin tomorrow at this web address:
www.dailylent.blogspot.com
You might also be interested in another daily Lenten resource compiled by The Center for Christian Spirituality and Chapelwood United Methodist Church in Houston, Texas, USA. This online resource will provide you with a poem-a-day throughout Lent, along with a suggestion for prayer and reflection. A different poem will be posted each day of Lent and Holy Week.
You can find this online poetry resource, called, "A Lenten Mosaic," at this web address:
www.chapelwood.org/lent
Finally, you might find it helpful to adopt a spiritual practice for the season. What discipline or prayer practice might sustain you through the season? Or even better, what might help you be more attentive to the voice of God as you journey through Lent? Be prayerful as you discern what practice you might adopt. Allow God's Spirit to direct you to what will be appropriate for you this season.
Don't try to copy anyone else. Don't mimic someone else's practice. Do what fits you. And then see it through for the 40+ days.
So step into the day tomorrow. Pack lightly. Take one or two tools with you, tools that will sustain you through your desert journey. Most of all, spend the days attentive to God's Spirit, light on your feet, responsive to the continual presence of God. That, after all, is what Lent is about.
I look forward to making the journey with you.
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