Ash Wednesday

     This is the first year in a long time, that I didn't attend or preside over an Ash Wednesday service. It was a little odd, after years of having that be part of the cadence of life.

      I'd like to say there is some big theological reason why we didn't host one at the church, but it's purely practical. We have 6 weeks until we launch on Easter Sunday, and everything is torn apart. Plus, I'm still figuring out this whole balance thing with work, home, and church. Adding another service seemed exhausting, and a challenge I wasn't up for. Mac also started a new job, so that added into it as well.

       Despite not having a service, I chose to use the day to reflect and prepare for these 40 days, which are marked even more closely by the fact that they coincide with when we want to have the church ready for the public.

         I spent most of the day cleaning, listening to music, reading, and cooking. Because I am a pastor, I had to think through these acts, and try to link them in some sort of meaningful way to Ash Wednesday. I don't know if I did that, but it did cause me to think and to reflect, which isn't a bad thing.

       Ash Wednesday is all about recognizing our mortality and our dependency on Christ. This year I've felt mortality and my dependency on Christ in ways I haven't before.

       I cared for Mac's grandmother in her last days, which really brought me to this point of understanding of mortality in ways I don't know I had before. We lost Mac's uncle just a few weeks later. It seems in many ways that this year was surrounded in a cloud of death, in a way more concrete than the grittiness of Ash Wednesday ashes could have conveyed to me.

      Added to the passing of loved ones, planting a church in an old church building in an urban area has conveyed death and mortality as well. The hopelessness of people around us at times, the desire for more, the dust and dirt we have cleaned in each room of an old and beautiful building. These things all convey a sense of things coming to an end.

      Life, since moving here, in some ways, seems like a very long season of Lent, or advent.... or maybe a bit of both. I don't know if Lent and advent are all that different in some regards, both have longing, both looking forward to something, hoping for something.

       This is why we've decided to launch services on Easter Sunday, because our whole story is about life coming in the midst of death, in spite of death, conquering it. Telling death it has no place here, that life is to reside within these walls, within this community, within our hearts.

     So, we didn't have ash Wednesday services, but in some ways, this ash Wednesday held more meaning than those that came before. Because I've looked at death in more profound ways than in years past. I sat close to it, and breathed it in. It scared me, and gripped me, and lingers on the edges. It ran it's icy cold fingers against my arm, and I was fully aware of it's presence. I saw it's evidence, in the news, in our family, in the dust on windowsills, and the stench of rooms closed up like tombs. I've seen it in the healed over cigarette burns on the arms of an elementary school student, and in the eyes of high school students who have seen their childhood die too soon. I see it in the cash for gold store windows, and the door fronts of payday loan establishments, with the promise of relief and comfort, only leaving those who enter more empty and struggling than before.  I've seen it on the street corners, and behind dumpsters. I hear him in the stories of abuse and alcoholism, and how this time she really will leave.  He is there. Always lingering, always pressing close, always threatening to have the last word. Death. Cold and unforgiving.

      But.... in the midst of acknowledging this mortality, of acknowledging that I too one day will die, there is this glimmer just on the edges. Death's icy grip is felt keenly, but there is something else on the horizon, and it is warmth, beauty, and love. It whispers too, in a still small voice, hope, love, peace, and grace. It shows up in those same corners, in those same rooms, behind those same dumpsters. It shows  up in the laughter and tears of women attending Al-Anon, praying for another day of peace and grace. It shows up in toilitries for the homeless, in the love and care of a teacher towards her student. It shows up in laying tile, in sanding walls, in weeding flower beds. It's there too, whispering, it's warm sweet breath, just waiting for the right moment to come forth. Like the crocus of early spring, it's waiting to break through.

         Life.

         So for these 40 days, we prepare our hearts. We look for those dead places. The places where we've chosen to see death, where we've chosen to speak death, embrace death, and we confess them. We repent of them and we turn away from his icy grasp, and we move in small ways, and in big ways, towards the warmth of life.

           38 more days. I hope this community is ready. I pray my heart is. 

This entry was posted on Friday, February 20, 2015. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response.

Leave a Reply