The ashes we use on Ash Wednesday come from burned palms - palms waved with Hosannas and high hopes at Jesus’s coming, then discarded in confusion and disgust when what came next was death instead of victory and triumph.
There is an honesty and familiarity in the ashes. They’re personal. They represent the incineration of our lost hopes and ruined plans, our decimated dreams and broken relationships. They come from “the debris of good intentions, the residue of our mistakes and failures.” (R.A.)
From ashes to ashes, and dust to dust.
One commentator says, “The[se] words do not refer to some universal concept of inanimate matter nor is the dust from an outside source. No, the ashes are us. The dust is the actualities of our lives. Our physical bodies. Our passions, limitations, mistakes and memories. Our families and friends. Our streets and neighbourhoods. The world in which we live. Our embodied journeys in time and place.” (Rodney Aist - Wild Goose)
These are the ashes of the burned stores and restaurants in Minneapolis as our city and country cried out in anguish and anger, and this is the dust of the ripped out walls in our church basement to open up space for new life. This is the dirt in which we’ve buried those we love and lost this year, and the dirt from which we grew tomatoes and zucchini to share with our neighbors through the summer. These are the ashes of our bonfires on the church lawn, sitting 10 feet apart when we could not gather side by side indoors. They're the dirt on the boots that trampled through our nation’s capital sounding out loud the chasm of division and pain in the heart of our nation. And these are the spent embers of our energy and enthusiasm for more of this pandemic kind of life after months and months of isolation and distance.
But “from the cinders of the cross come the soil of resurrection.” (R.A.) From our death, our brokenness and impossibility, God moves to bring new life. God breathes life into dust to create the Adam, the creature of the earth, Adamah. We are made from dust, and we bring to God the dust of our lives knowing "what God can do with dust." (as Jan Richardson says.)
Each year at Lent we return to these ashes, as the emptiness, nothingness, from which our God creates. This is the soil we offer to God to grow new life – in us, and in the world.
One commentator says, “The[se] words do not refer to some universal concept of inanimate matter nor is the dust from an outside source. No, the ashes are us. The dust is the actualities of our lives. Our physical bodies. Our passions, limitations, mistakes and memories. Our families and friends. Our streets and neighbourhoods. The world in which we live. Our embodied journeys in time and place.” (Rodney Aist - Wild Goose)
These are the ashes of the burned stores and restaurants in Minneapolis as our city and country cried out in anguish and anger, and this is the dust of the ripped out walls in our church basement to open up space for new life. This is the dirt in which we’ve buried those we love and lost this year, and the dirt from which we grew tomatoes and zucchini to share with our neighbors through the summer. These are the ashes of our bonfires on the church lawn, sitting 10 feet apart when we could not gather side by side indoors. They're the dirt on the boots that trampled through our nation’s capital sounding out loud the chasm of division and pain in the heart of our nation. And these are the spent embers of our energy and enthusiasm for more of this pandemic kind of life after months and months of isolation and distance.
But “from the cinders of the cross come the soil of resurrection.” (R.A.) From our death, our brokenness and impossibility, God moves to bring new life. God breathes life into dust to create the Adam, the creature of the earth, Adamah. We are made from dust, and we bring to God the dust of our lives knowing "what God can do with dust." (as Jan Richardson says.)
Each year at Lent we return to these ashes, as the emptiness, nothingness, from which our God creates. This is the soil we offer to God to grow new life – in us, and in the world.
It is a relief to gather this way. To see visibly our mortality on the faces of those looking back at us across a screen. We are a community of honesty, and it is here that God meets us.
Now we wait.
Now we wait.
We cultivate a spirit of waiting. Waiting for God to do what only God can do. For God to do what God does.
Lent is a gift. We rest in the honesty and the waiting.
We hold up our ashes to God and watch for what God will do with them.
May you be blessed in your Lenten wait.
PRAYER PRACTICE
Our Lenten prayer journals are a way for us to pause and process as we receive each week and set intentions for the following week.
May you be blessed in your Lenten wait.
PRAYER PRACTICE
Our Lenten prayer journals are a way for us to pause and process as we receive each week and set intentions for the following week.
This week:What do these ashes on your own face represent to you? What are the ashes you bring to God, seeking resurrection and life?
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