Order and space

Saturday after Ash Wednesday

Weeping may spend the night,
but joy comes in the morning.
Psalm 30:6

It is time. I have been avoiding my desk at home for weeks it seems, and it is piled with important and unimportant papers. It has been easy to ignore as there are other tasks I find much more interesting and satisfying. I make a cup of afternoon tea to fortify myself for entering the morass.

The papers and sticky notes are not the only things piled here. Grief has also kept me from this mess as much of what waits for my attention has to do with my father’s estate. One by one I sort through each paper, each note, creating order and clearing space. And in my heart space is also cleared and I feel a heaviness lift from my soul.

The wilderness of this season can offer wide-open spaces, room for breathing and cleansing, desert light to illumine what needs attentive care.

Refuge

Friday after Ash Wednesday

In you, O Lord, have I taken refuge;
let me never be put to shame;
deliver me in your righteousness.
Psalm 31:7

I step out the door and the wind whips the cold air about me with a vengeance. Its bitterness is a surprise. The balmy weather of the last few days and the bright sunshine had promised spring warmth. And yet I know that contradiction is the byword of this season.

I pull my coat closer and hurry forward until I can step around the corner of a building and shelter from the blast. And as I linger there, finally able to feel the sun, I think of other times I have found refuge from a storm, and how life-giving it is to be protected.

Lent too is a season of contradictions. The wilderness offers both danger and sanctuary. In my own journey of self-examination, I want to engage those things that need change in my life—and I want to step away from the temptation that leads to shame. What my past encounters with this territory have taught me, and what I pull close about me now, is the knowledge the Holy One offers places of refuge along the way.

I step back out into the incongruity and inconsistency of the not-yet spring and make my way toward home.

Lenten fierce

Thursday after Ash Wednesday

Commit your way to the Lord and put your trust in him,
and he will bring it to pass.
Psalm 37:5

I wake to the sound of ferocious wind summoning me out of sleep, demanding my immediate and complete attention. It is not the calm morning I had anticipated, and I find the sense of urgency difficult to set aside so I can settle into prayer.

Last night, in the darkened church, we knelt together and set our hearts toward penitence, asking God to accept our repentance. I saw the cracks in my life: the broken places in need of healing, failings in need of repair, the places I have come up short. And I also saw the way forward, that the Holy One asks me to turn and return, and that when I set my feet on the path of reconciliation, I am not alone. There will be help and companions along the way.

One step into the Lenten journey and I know this will be a wild one. The Spirit is cleansing fierce. It will not let me slumber, it will demand my all.

Lingering ashes

Ash Wednesday

Let me hear of your loving-kindness in the morning,

for I put my trust in you;

show me the road that I must walk, for I lift up my soul to you.

Psalm 143:8

I enter into the morning, stepping onto the Lenten path and aware of a faint burnt smell lingering on my skin. Last night we stood around the flame of burning palms making ready today’s ashes. The glow and warmth of the flickering tongues of brightness gathered us, pulling us into one another, creating community and camaraderie around the fire.

The flames died, the people dispersed, leaving behind only ash and a shimmer of our presence.

Today those ashes will mark foreheads, carrying with them the dust of last year’s palms and the hands that held them in procession, the dust of months of prayers, the dust of faith.

Dust that was our beginning, dust that will be our end. Dust that has been made of holiness and will make holy even as it leaves its mark.

Preparing for Ashes

For your love is before my eyes;
I have walked faithfully with you.
Psalm 26:3

In the spring-promising warmth, I step onto a trail that I have not visited since last fall. I find it yet full of winter bareness. Still, underneath the brown wet earth, I know that new life is being prepared.

Tomorrow is a day of ashes. A day of remembering that we are made of dust and will return to dust. A day for setting our minds and hearts and selves within a season of repentance for the sake of renewal.

Even now negotiating a rocky path amidst branches and stalks and stems that cut gnarled patterns across a pale sky, I find solace in my solitary walk. I stop on a footbridge and gaze at the stream letting my heart flow into the distance with the cold water. And I also see the leaves still caught in frozen layers along the bank waiting for release.