Sermon for Ash Wednesday 2026

February 18, 2026, Ash Wednesday
By Kristin Berkey-Abbott



Matthew 6:1–6, 16–21


A lot of us approach Ash Wednesday as a kind of wake up call, a reminder that we all die in the end, and so we better get on with it and start living better lives. Because we live in a secular culture that wants us to forget this reality, in many ways the Ash Wednesday message that we're returning to death is an important one.


And yet, the older I get, the less I need this reminder. When I was younger, the Ash Wednesday message—we are dust and to dust we shall return—that message still had the power to shock me. For a very long time, my maternal grandmother was one of the oldest people I knew, and she always had more energy than the rest of us combined. But now I’ve seen death come for former classmates, former colleagues, and friends and family. Some weeks, it feels like every day comes with the Ash Wednesday wake up call, as people younger than me die, and now it seems predictable, no longer freakish.


So we might be tempted to choose a Lenten discipline with an eye to cheating death. We might want to give up alcohol, for example, in the hopes that we get a few more years. We might give up sugar, thinking that we’ll say a prayer whenever we have a sugar craving, but also hoping to lose some pounds along the way.


One of the problems that comes with thinking about our Lenten disciplines this way is that many of us go right back to our former habits once we get to Easter. Shouldn’t a Lenten discipline change us more profoundly and permanently? What does it say about our discipline, Lenten or otherwise, that we can drop it so quickly?


If you were at church on Sunday, or if you listened to the sermon (thank you tech wizard Katie!), you hear me think out loud about giving up something that’s really hard. We live in a culture that’s always giving up sugar or dairy or gluten or extra calories. There’s lots of support for that effort. On Sunday, I made this impromptu suggestion: If we’re giving up something for Lent, let’s give up talking badly about other people, both the people we know personally and the ones who are famous. If we want to do something really hard, let’s giving up thinking bad thoughts about others—let’s give everyone the benefit of the doubt and tell ourselves, “They’re doing their best.”


Luther encourages this behavior. In The Small Catechism, in interpreting the Eighth commandment, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor, he tells us that the commandment is about so much more than refraining from lying. He says that we are to interpret everything that our neighbors do in the best possible light.


But I’ve decided not to do this as my Lenten discipline. Just thinking about it for 48 hours made me realize how hard it would be and how much of my time would be consumed with reminding myself that people are doing their best. Maybe I would retrain my inner thoughts. But maybe there’s another way to do this, a way that would benefit not just me, but others.


I like the idea of adding something for Lent, although I realize that for some of us, just thinking of where we would add the extra something might make us ready to throw up our hands in defeat before we even start. In the past, I’ve added a daily devotional, and if that’s your preference, know that the publishing world has noticed—you’ll have a lot of books to choose from.


As I was reflecting on Lenten disciplines, my mind wandered to how many people I know personally who are facing crises of various sorts and how few are not. I made a note to myself to pray for them. And then, my Lenten discipline revealed itself.


I’m going to send at least one note of encouragement to someone each day. It will be a physical note, written by hand on paper, and sent through the mail. As I’m writing the note, I’ll be praying for them and for the larger world. My hope is that the recipient will have their spirits lifted, at least for a time. They’ll have something to keep on paper, a reminder that someone is praying for them and with them.


Some of you might ask, “Don’t you already do send hand written cards?” Yes, for friends who really need it, for people for whom it is the only way to communicate, like my friend who had a stroke and is confined to a skilled nursing unit. I send a note at times of acute crisis. But I’d like to send notes as a matter of routine.


It may seem like a little thing, especially when compared to the big, difficult thing of refusing to think bad thoughts about anyone that might flit through my brain. But refusing to think bad thoughts would only be changing me. Sending notes of encouragement has the potential to change over 40 individuals, at least for a brief moment at the mailbox. Sending notes of encouragement will give me a tactile prayer discipline. If I begin this practice now, my hope is that it will be cemented by Easter, that I can continue sending notes and cards of encouragement throughout the year.


We might think that a Lenten discipline needs to be something dour or something that imposes order on chaos. But what would happen if we looked for ways for our Lenten disciplines to bring us joy? Writing cards will bring me joy, from the creating of the card to the affixing of the stamp. I’ve been buying more stamps than I have been using, and the post office creates so many beautiful stamps.


I’ve found it useful to think about Lenten enrichment, instead of Lenten discipline. The theologian Diana Butler Bass reminds us that the earliest Christians saw the season of Lent as preparation for meeting the risen Lord. It’s an interesting idea—if you knew that Jesus was coming here, in the flesh, to celebrate Easter with us in this sanctuary, and then spending the week with you, in your house, what would you be doing right now to prepare?


Don’t say you would be deep cleaning the house, unless that brings you joy. I’d be reaching out to people, planning some get togethers. I’d bake a poundcake or two, because they freeze well, and they’re a versatile dessert. I’d get together the art supplies we’d need to have a fun morning creating together, where I would see the creative process of God in real time.


I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Let’s approach this Lent as a time where we’re getting ready to meet Jesus, where we have the courage to put aside all the stuff that hasn’t served us well, and we have the discipline to commit to joy, and to choose the joy of living in the Kingdom of God even before death. Death will come for us all soon enough. Choose joy. Choose Jesus.

Ash Wednesday/Valentine's Day Sermon

I really liked my Wednesday sermon for Ash Wednesday.  I won't always be able to preach this way--Ash Wednesday and Valentine's Day will be on the same day only one more time during my lifetime (2029), so let me post it here:

Here we are at a strange confluence of holidays—not Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday—that confluence goes back at least as far as medieval times, when many Christians, if they were wealthy enough to afford the items in the first place, gave up sugar and meat and fat and alcohol for Lent. So, as Ash Wednesday approached, they had to get all those items out of the house--thus, a festive party opportunity. And now, we continue that tradition with our Shrove Tuesday pancake suppers and Mardi Gras festivities.

No, I’m talking about this day when we get to celebrate both Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday. For some people, this mix of love and mortality might be unwelcome. But let’s sit with it a bit. We will only have Ash Wednesday falling on Valentine’s Day one more time this century, in 2029.

When I was young, I hated Ash Wednesday, which seemed to be a holiday designed to tell us that we’re worthless sinners. And to be honest, I also hated Valentine’s Day, a holiday designed to remind schoolchildren how much some are loved and others aren’t. I have fond memories of making Valentine’s mailboxes out of shoeboxes. We had classroom parties with cupcakes brought in by moms (not dads, in those days, always moms). It was a different time, and no one made sure that everyone got a Valentine’s Day card, the way that some schools do now. You might get a bundle, or you might get none, for those of us who went to elementary school in the early 70’s.

To be fair, I was in the middle range. I had no reason to hate the holiday. But it was always that fear that no one would give me a Valentine, that fear that I would have an empty box at the end of the day.

Ash Wednesday provokes a similar fear in me, with its message of mortality. Worse, it’s a fear that I know is a reasonable one. Like so many of us, I am afraid that I will be the little old lady who outlives her friends and family. Sure, I have younger friends, in addition to the ones my age and older, but I’m no dummy. I’ve already outlived some of my younger colleagues and family members. We are dust, and every day that goes by means that we are closer to returning to dust.

Our texts tonight remind us of all the ways that humans try to forget that we’re made of dust. Maybe we’ve tried to stay on the right side of God with our religious practices, praying and fasting. The words of Jesus remind us to enter into these practices with the correct spirit. We can do everything that is helps us build Christian community and still find ourselves criticized and worse. The words of Paul in Corinthians remind us that God sees what we are doing and God blesses us, even if the larger world does not.

But frankly, that’s cold comfort when I think of ending up alone with everything I love in ashes. In tonight’s Gospel, Jesus acknowledges that we live in a world where thieves can steal and moths and rust destroy. He doesn’t try to explain God’s wisdom in creating this world. He doesn’t try to convince us that we should look on the bright side of our Ash Wednesday existence. He does remind us that our hearts should be elsewhere, that we should be focused on a treasure that’s not going to leave us.

Just as Saint Valentine is credited with delivering messages between lovers, Jesus delivers a message from God. Jesus comes to tell us how profoundly we are loved by God. I imagine some of his first century audience as similar to a fourth grade child who never received a Valentine, never got an invitation to a birthday party, never felt included. We see the powerful impact of this message, as Jesus cures people of all that brings them woe and keeps them excluded. Jesus declares God’s love for all of creation, from the least to the ones that already have plenty of love. And Jesus goes many steps further by showing us how to manifest more of that love in our human lives—by caring for each other, so that we don’t have to fear being the one who has outlived all of our family and friends and connections. What an amazing Valentine Jesus delivers to our cardboard mailboxes!

It's a Valentine message that I don’t always appreciate, that in God’s design, there’s room for me and there’s room for the cancer cell. It’s a Valentine message that I struggle to emulate, this love for all of creation. Our Lenten disciplines and enrichments can help us be open to receiving this love, even if we don’t understand it fully—and our Lenten disciplines can embolden us to extend that love to others.

Our knowledge of our mortality should inspire us to form more connections, not fewer. Yes, everything we love will be lost, but God promises that a new life will emerge.

As you come forward to receive the ash, let yourself reflect on all that it means. Traditionally the ashes come from the burning of last year’s Palm Sunday fronds. In the same way, the universe recycles all—we are dust, yes, but it’s dust made of decomposing galaxies and last year’s festivals and everyone who ever walked before us. We don’t have limitless amounts of time in this human form we inhabit now, but God reaches out to us across space and time, in the words of the prophets and psalmists, in the incarnation of Jesus, in the creation that God is always making and remaking.

Yes, we are dust, and to dust we shall return. But Ash Wednesday doesn’t give us the complete picture. Ash Wednesday points us to Easter, God’s ultimate Valentine message of love where God shows us that even though earthly powers and principalities join together to defeat the ultimate message of Love that Jesus brings, those powers and principalities will not succeed. Easter gives us the promise of resurrection. Everything we love will turn to dust, but dust is not the final incarnation. From that dust will come something new, something shining, something celestial in its beauty.

Ash Wednesday and Valentine's Day

 It is both Ash Wednesday and Valentine's Day, a confluence of holidays that will only happen again once this century in 2029.  Observant folks may remember that it happened in 2018, and people like me, who do some Google searching (which is not nearly as effective as it once was) will discover that it happened in 1923, 1934, and 1945.

I need to write a sermon for tonight's worship service at Faith Lutheran in Bristol, Tennessee, and get the Communion bread made.  I am hoping that this blogging helps to order my thoughts.  Part of the problem with an Ash Wednesday sermon is that there are so many fruitful directions.  But since there aren't many Ash Wednesdays that are celebrated on Valentine's Day, maybe I'll use this juxtaposition.

I went to my YouTube channel and was surprised in a delighted kind of way to remember how many video sermons I made during the pandemic.  Here's a video sermon that I created for Ash Wednesday 2021--it holds up well.

I am intrigued by how many of my Ash Wednesday meditations from past years didn't reference the Bible texts at all.  But in some ways, that makes sense.  I wasn't preparing a sermon after all.  But for tonight, let me think about all of the texts.  We are using the passage from Joel, not Isaiah--drat.  I love verse 12  from Isaiah 58:  "Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in."

I am also thinking about my sermon and about how few of us need reminders of our mortality.  Most of the members that will hear my sermon tonight are over 50 years old; sadly, these days, death is not unfamiliar to us.  My seminary professors might remind me to ask myself as I'm writing:  where is the good news in this?

The good news is the animating breath of God.  We are dust, yes, galactic ash, the remains of stars and galaxies.  But it is the breath of God that transforms.  And that breath of God is love itself.

I am writing this blog post as a fire burns in the fireplace, as the bread for tonight's communion is in the oven set to proofing temperature.  The first pinks of sunrise are making their way across the mountain range that I can see through the mostly leafless trees.  Yesterday I saw a field of daffodils at the North Carolina welcome center as I drove home from teaching at Spartanburg Methodist College.  Part of me loved seeing this eruption of daffodils, but part of me thought, no, no, it's too soon.

That imagery can work for Ash Wednesday too.  Let me see what I come up with.

The Day before Ash Wednesday

Happy Shrove Tuesday!  Happy Mardi Gras!  Last week, when I mentioned to my Tuesday/Thursday classes that we'd be meeting on Mardi Gras, I got blank looks.  I still don't know whether they were blank looks because my students haven't ever heard of Mardi Gras or because they see me as an old lady who can't possibly understand the joys of cheap, plastic beads and buckets of alcoholic drinks.

I do realize that both may be true.

I usually don't have much in the way of plans for the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday.  But tonight, my local Lutheran church is having a pancake supper to raise funds to send the youth to the big Gathering later this year.  And we are planning to go.

I say my local Lutheran church, which means the one around the corner from my Lutheridge house, the one with the quilt group that has become dear to my heart.  I rarely worship there anymore, because I go to my other church, Faith Lutheran in Bristol, Tennessee, where we'll celebrate Ash Wednesday together; they, too, are having a pancake supper tonight.  And I'm still a member of my South Florida church, Trinity Lutheran in Pembroke Pines; they had beignets this past Sunday.

For my three classes today, I'll present three different love poems and have them write a bit.  I decided to go with love poems and not Ash Wednesday poems, and I decided to stay away from traditional love poetry.  Here's what we'll be doing, if you want to read along:

The poem that's closest to a traditional love poem is Leah Furnas' "The Longley-Weds Know."  The one with the biggest Ash Wednesday vibe is Maggie Smith's "Good Bones"--it's a hopeful Ash Wednesday vibe, but an Ash Wednesday vibe nonetheless.  And the poem that is the one that makes me feel a spark of hope in an Ash Wednesday kind of way is Naomi Shihab Nye's "Gate A-4."

I wasn't able to find much poetry with an outright Ash Wednesday theme, apart from T. S. Eliot, whom I'm not going to tackle with first year students.  And I thought about my own--I've got a series of Ash Wednesday poems, but I don't feel like including them.  I've posted some of them here in the past.  Maybe tomorrow I'll unveil a new one.  Maybe today, I'll write a new one.

Ash Wednesday 2023

Sound travels in odd ways in this seminary apartment building.  Somewhere, someone has ambient music playing, the kind you might play if you were trying to block out other noise so that you could sleep.  I hear about every third note, and I find it oddly soothing, so much so that I haven't shifted to my usual morning routine of listening to episodes of various NPR shows that I've missed or the few podcasts that I follow.  I've heard the ambient music before, usually in the middle of the night, and it has lulled me back to sleep then.

Another odd fact of life in this apartment building this term:  we have had weekly water outages.  We get announcements in advance, and it's only for a few hours.  Yesterday was one of those outages, and so I took my shower very early, so I could go to the 7 a.m.  Ash Wednesday service at nearby St. Columba's Episcopal church.

I had planned to go to the grocery store after the service, but it occurred to me that I could go before the service if I left right after I finished the morning watch session that I do every morning for my Florida church.  And so, I did.  I was on foot, and I felt perfectly safe, walking to Wegmans just before 6 a.m.  Lots of folks were walking, but almost all of them were construction workers, walking with their hard hats in hand.  As I left Wegmans and walked up the hill to St. Columba's, I stopped to take some pictures of the sunrise:

I got to St. Columba's early, about 6:43 a.m. for the 7 a.m. service, but the church was open.  I went in and took a few pictures before the service started as people were getting ready:

I was happy that a female priest presided.  As we went up for ashes, I tried to determine who filled the pews:  mostly white-skinned women like me, at the far side of midlife or the early part of their older years, most with sensible hair cuts, most in natural shades of gray.  There was one woman who presented as African-American, one younger woman with pink and green hair pulled back in a ponytail, another even younger woman in an American Ballet Theatre sweatshirt who was there with an older man (they seemed to be father-daughter, but who can be sure?).  There were a few men, but mostly females.

The website said it would be a brief service with imposition of ashes and eucharist.  I was a little surprised to see a bulletin:

The service was brief in that we didn't have music, but otherwise, we covered everything that I want in an Ash Wednesday service.  In fact, I found Isaiah 58: 1-12 so moving that I've decided to do my first sermon for Women and the Preaching Life class on the last verses of the text.

After the service, I took some pictures.  Some of the parishioners looked at me as they passed by me, and I wondered if they thought I was strange for taking pictures or if they thought they knew me but couldn't place me.

I returned to my seminary apartment full of purpose and made this Facebook post:  "As many of you know, I'm an early bird, so this morning, I headed off to Saint Columba's Episcopal Church for their first Ash Wednesday service at 7 a.m., and on my way, I stopped by Wegman's to get a few things. I did grocery shopping, got a longish walk done, and got a visceral reminder of my mortality, all before 8 in the morning!"

I had planned to spend the day doing lots of writing for seminary classes, but I did none of it.  I did some of the work that needs to be done before writing:  thinking about the assignment for my Queer Theology class, reading the books that I'll respond to in a discussion post for World Religions class.  I doublechecked my calendars to make sure I wasn't missing anything.

I got other work done.  I called my former employer, the one who severed me from my last full-time job, and asked them to provide me my W2.  It wasn't as awkward as I thought it might be, and I did get the document.  Let me remember how much time it took, the better part of an hour:  I did internet searching, made a phone call, waited on hold, got transferred, waited on hold, got transferred back, took down info about e-mail addresses, sent an e-mail, got a phone call, took down info, got re-registered for Viventium (the site that securely stores all this paperwork), and finally, I got my W2.

I got other writing done, primarily writing in my journal.  I made a casserole that has leftovers that means I won't have to cook later.  I went for a late afternoon walk.  I had a video call with my spouse who is in North Carolina.

I thought about trying to get seminary writing done in the early evening, but I decided that I would do a better job if I waited.  It was too early to go to bed, so I watched a few episodes of The Chosen, which was a much better show than I thought it would be.  I felt slightly less guilty about taking the night off because the show is about Jesus.  I did a lot of sewing on what I'm calling my small pieces collection:

These are the pieces in progress--the double bed in the guest room is covered with finished pieces.  I'm taking advantage of this time of living by myself, keeping supplies close by and every surface draped with fabric:

I won't always have this luxury:  time to write, time to study, time to sew.  I am profoundly grateful.

Ash Wednesday Arrives

  After the pancakes, the ashes.  Yesterday, many of us had pancake dinners, Mardi Gras beverages, all types of festivities:

Yesterday I did not have pancakes, but I did have good lunch with seminary colleagues and later, I went to a pizza place, where I did not eat or drink.  It wasn't an early Lenten fast.  Our Queer Theology class was invited to go for pizza with the Ethical Self and Witness class.  My first thought was dismay about having an evening class.  I decided that I could join them, that I had enough time to walk there and back and to socialize a bit in between.  But I didn't want to drink, because I don't drink when I need to be alert later.  And I wasn't sure I had enough time to order food.  So in the end, I drank water and chatted, which was more a Lent vibe than a Shrove Tuesday/Mardi Gras vibe.

I was happy to be invited to the kind of event that I thought would be more frequent if I lived on campus--which was both a Mardi Gras and Lent vibe, the happiness of being together with only water to drink.  Many of my fellow seminary students also work at churches, so they were feeling the stress of an Ash Wednesday service to plan and/or needed to head back for Shrove Tuesday events.

I've decided to mix up my usual Ash Wednesday routine--usually I've had to work during the day, so I've gone to evening services.  This year, I'll go to the 7 am service at nearby St. Columba's.  I'm not sure what to expect.  Perhaps it will be drive up ashes, which I've never experienced.  The website does say that there's a short eucharistic service.

Will I go to the National Cathedral for the evening service?  Perhaps.  Let me see how the day unfolds.

Ash Wednesday in a Time of Plague and War

 It is Ash Wednesday, and I will be preaching the Ash Wednesday sermon tonight.  My pastor asked me if I would like to do it, and I said yes--this was several weeks before the invasion of Ukraine.  Does the invasion of Ukraine change my message?

Maybe it will--I'll let us all know tomorrow, once I know what I actually preached.  I usually go into sermons with an idea of what I will say, but I don't write it all out.  If the Holy Spirit wants to say something, there's room.  It's partly that, but it's partly that I'm lazy and often crunched for time.

A lot of us approach Ash Wednesday as a kind of wake up call, a reminder that we all die in the end, and so we better get on with what we plan to do with our lives.  Because we live in a secular culture that wants us to forget this reality, in many ways the Ash Wednesday message that we're returning to death is an important one.

But the pandemic has driven that point home in a way that the symbolism and sermons of Ash Wednesday services never quite managed to do.  Almost everyone I know, from all walks of life, is making different life decisions than they would have made three years ago.

The eruption of war in Europe has shifted our attention to the ash part of Ash Wednesday.  We may be thinking of the futility of all that we do, when it will all end in ash and decay.  With nuclear saber rattling happening and mass bombings in Ukraine, do we need to emphasize the "Remember that you are dust" message of Ash Wednesday?

Our church will have a prayer table with candles to light as we pray for Ukraine, and to me, that's a potent Ash Wednesday symbol too. We are asked to remember that we are dust, but we are not told that our descent to ashes gives us license to forget the tribulations of the world.  Many of us are old enough to have seen that iron curtains can come down, that freedom fighters can emerge from prisons and go on to win national elections. 

Ash Wednesday begins the season of Lent in dust and ashes, but we are heading towards a very different season, the season of Easter.  This season of ash will end at the high holiday, Easter, that tells us that death, decay, and ash will not have the final word.

Video Sermon for Ash Wednesday

My pastor asked me if I wanted to do the meditation for Ash Wednesday, and I jumped at the chance.  I knew it would be pre-recorded, and I knew that I've been enjoying my approach of recording segments and seeing how to stitch them together.  I like that the process pulls on my poetry brain.  I like trying to think of ways to make the message new.

This year offers additional challenges.  There's the standard challenge of having heard the message already:  Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.  Some of us might say, "We hear this every year.  Blah, blah, blah, dust, ash, rust, smash."

But this year, with Ash Wednesday coming after a year of these reminders of our mortality, how do we make the message new?  This year, after a year of watching all we've built implode, explode, decay, and disappear, how do we create a message that touches on these themes but doesn't leave us clinically depressed?

Here's one of the video segments that tries to do all of that:

I confess that I don't know if I've been successful.  The video sermon is too big to put in this blog post, but you can go here to see it.

When I went to my YouTube channel to get the link to the sermon to post,  I was surprised to find that the video had 53 views, far more views than any other video I've posted to the channel.  How did people find it?  What Google searches brought them to my little video sermon on Ash Wednesday?

Pandemic Protocols: Masks, Thermometers, and Ash Wednesday

Tuesday at work was the first day of what will likely be the new normal for a long time.  Students arrived on campus in a limited capacity; they came only to do lab work for classes, and only the lab work that couldn't be done virtually.  We all wore masks, and I took everyone's temperature upon arrival with a no-touch thermometer.

We had the advantage of having several months to get used to some of this.  In our county in South Florida, we have been wearing masks to stores for almost two months, so wearing a mask on campus is less strange than it would have been in early April.

It still feels strange to take people's temperature, even though it's a no touch system.  With all these months of hearing about 6 feet of social distancing, it feels invasive to get that close, even when we both wear masks.

Each one of my masks makes me miserable in a different way.  One is too tight, while the other has elastic ear loops that are a bit too big.  One I lined with a flannel fabric that sheds fibers and makes my nose itch.  I've tried every way of getting them to stay on my face:  elastic ear loops, ties, clipping them to my hair in addition to the other securing--they still feel like they'll slip away from my nose and mouth with the slightest exhale.  Plus I'm realizing that I'm often holding my breath when I put the mask on.

Our no-touch thermometer has the temperature taker aim for the lower part of the forehead.  On Wednesday morning I took temperatures and thought about how much it felt like Ash Wednesday, except I wasn't smearing ashes on the foreheads of parishioners.  Still, it's a potent reminder of what's at stake regardless of whether its' the taking of a temperature or the smearing of ash.  We are all dust, and to dust we shall return.

I also thought about the week-end when I had made the mask I was wearing.  It was Easter week-end, and it was becoming clear that we would need masks; it was also becoming clear that there was a national shortage.  It was strange to sew masks and to think about the Easter readings of the empty tomb with the folded grave cloths.  I've always been touched by that idea:  Jesus rising from the dead, but taking time to fold the grave wrappings.

At some point, I'll write a poem about all of this.  But for now, it's time to head to church.  I'm preaching the sermon--we're celebrating the Ascension.

Ashes, Carbon, Cactus, and Prophetic Promises

Here we are, the day after Mardi Gras/Shrove Tuesday, the day that marks a particularly penitent time in the Christian calendar.  It's Ash Wednesday, the day that reminds us of our ultimate destiny:  we are dust and ash, the detritus of stars, but ultimately dust and ash, a bundle of carbon and other elements.

Last year, coming home from Ash Wednesday service, I had these thoughts on the brain, and I was stopped at a train crossing, with a particularly lengthy train.  I grabbed my camera and experimented with taking pictures of myself in a rearview mirror.  A cross of ash, a rearview mirror, a long train--I should think about a poem.

Earlier parts of last year's Ash Wednesday's service were more traditional. 

I had forgotten how many cactus elements were part of the sanctuary last year:

Later, one of these cactus pots would hold the baby Jesus as he waited out the Advent season, waiting for his debut on Christmas Eve:

Throughout the service, I worked on this sketch:

Let us remember the promise of the ancient prophets:  "Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt" (from the 58th chapter of Isaiah).  Let us dream about the best way to rebuild our ruins!

Ruined Stars: An Ash Wednesday Meditation

Today is Ash Wednesday, the day in the Liturgical year that reminds us that we are dust, and all too soon, we'll return to dust. Those of us who go to Ash Wednesday services will have a cross smudged on our foreheads, a cross of ash ideally made from burning the palm branches from the previous year's Palm Sunday. We hear some variation of these words: "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

You can call yourself a creature made out of the ruins of stars (true!), but you're dust all the same.

You say you're unfamiliar with Ash Wednesday? Are you one of the bajillion people who celebrated Mardi Gras yesterday or maybe you went further and had yourself a season of Carnivale? You have participated in the liturgical year without perhaps even realizing it. Those holidays arose as a response to the liturgical season of Lent, which begins with Ash Wednesday. In much earlier church times, Lent was a time of discipline, of giving up, of penitence. Many Christians, if they were wealthy enough to afford the items in the first place, gave up sugar and meat and fat and alcohol. So, as the season of Lent approached, they had to get all those items out of the house--thus, a festive party opportunity!

Yesterday, my campus celebrated Mardi Gras, sort of. We had beads, but no festive drinks. We bought charcoal grills the day before, and my boss, the executive director of the campus, spent the afternoon grilling burgers for all. We had salad and veggie burgers, and two kinds of cake. They were sheet cakes--carrot and red velvet--that one can buy at Costco type stores. In other words, they were fairly simple, but some people acted as if they were eating the food of the gods. It was a hectic day, and it took days out of my work week to plan and shop, but it was satisfying to see people having such a good time.

Some might ask why my focus wasn't more academic; some might wonder if I was avoiding the true work. I have no idea. I know that some of our students need the food. I know that some of our students need to feel more stitched in to the campus. I know that some of our students see the campus as their only source of stability. These kinds of events help foster a good morale, and therefore, I have hopes that these kinds of events improve retention. I have no way of measuring my theory, no measurable outcomes that I can definitively link to campus co-curricular activities.

They also bring me joy. Let me not underestimate that factor. The joy keeps me going through the less fun aspects of the job.

And now, the season of penitence. It also happens to be the season of a lot of writing of accreditation documents. This pairing makes sense to me.

Behold the words of ancient wisdom:

"Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." We walk this planet for such a short time. This high, holy day reminds us of that fact--viscerally. We are a marked people.

Later in the day, I will lead a journaling class at church before Ash Wednesday service. Here's my favorite photo of ashes on the forehead, which happens to be my forehead after the 2014 service:













Here's a quote from Henri Nouwen to start your day. It's from A Cry for Mercy: "Our temptation is to be so impressed by our sins and failings and so overwhelmed by our lack of generosity that we get stuck in a paralyzing guilt. It is the guilt that says 'I am too sinful to deserve God's mercy.' It is the guilt that leads to introspection instead of directing our eyes to God. It is the guilt that has become an idol and therefore a form of pride. Lent is the time to break down this idol and to direct our attention to our loving Lord. The question is: 'Are we like Judas, who was so overcome by his sin that he could not believe in God's mercy any longer and hanged himself, or are we like Peter who returned to his Lord with repentance and cried bitterly for his sins?' The season of Lent, during which winter and spring struggle with each other for dominance, helps us in a special way to cry out for God's mercy."

The Transition from Epiphany to Lent

Here we are as the season shifts from Epiphany to Lent.  Some of us will celebrate Shrove Tuesday--pancakes for all!  Some of us will have even more fun with Mardi Gras and its more extreme celebration of Carnival.

But those of us who are poets have much to work with:  stars that appear suddenly, ashes, transfigurations of all sorts.  I like the idea that human bodies are composed of decomposed stars. 

We think of Transfiguration Sunday as this transcendent moment on the mountain--and it is. But the important part of the story, one that may be overlooked, is that we don't get to stay on the mountain. We can't build our booths up there. We have to come back to the muck and the mess.

Our lives are made up of so much muck and mess. And Ash Wednesday reminds us that this muck and mess dries up eventually--we're ash, and all too soon, we'll blow away.  In cosmic time or geological time, we're here for a blip.

Transfiguration Sunday reminds us that God has other plans. God can take dust and create a world. God can take the dust of all our dashed hopes and turn them into a creation of glowing wonder.

I tend to think of Ash Wednesday metaphors in terms of what is decomposing: stars, bodies, all sorts of biological matter. But decomposing takes many forms.  I'm thinking of the loss of history, the layers we build upon, the deconstruction of buildings to create the structures we prefer, the concrete that smothers the land.  I'm thinking about how dreams decompose.

How can we transfigure this muck and mess? Ash Wednesday BEGS us to wrestle with this question, now, before it is too late.

More Thoughts On Ash Wednesday Metaphors

I've spent over two weeks thinking about Ash Wednesday and wondering if there are other metaphors we could use in addition to ash.  Let me capture a few more thoughts before I lose them.

But you might ask, why more metaphors?  What's wrong with ash?

Nothing is wrong with ash, but for those of us who grew up in churches that celebrate Ash Wednesday, the metaphor may have lost its power.  Some of us might have quibbles with the ash metaphor, especially as we clean out our fireplaces and fire pits.  We don't really turn into ash.  We turn into earth.

And I'm not suggesting that we change what we smudge on our foreheads every year.  Let me stress that.  In a way, it's cleaner to smudge ash that's made of burning last year's palms than it is to smear potting soil on our foreheads.

Tree branches and dead leaves are great Ash Wednesday metaphors, but not very far away from our traditional metaphors.  For our Ash Wednesday shadow box project, I brought in dried up banana leaves and dead flower that weren't decayed yet.

What are other metaphors for our eventual destiny?  I've been thinking of dryer lint, which is made up of particles of humans, after all.

Does old technology work as a metaphor?  I'm thinking of old hard drives that store lots of information, but we have no way to access it.  I'm thinking of old floppy discs.  I'm thinking of a DVD drive that I found in a drawer recently that seems to have no way of communicating with any of the technology that's in our house now.

If I worked in a hospital, I might come up with more metaphors:  perhaps the drip, drip, drip of a saline pack that will usher many of us across our last threshold.

This is the week that makes me think of smells that might be Ash Wednesday smells:  the spent gunpowder smell of a gun that's fired.  Old cooking smells.  That smell that's in hospitals that undefinable but unmistakable.  Smells are certainly harder to capture than visual images which may explain why churches and other artists do less with smells.

Ash Wednesday Imagery

On Ash Wednesday, I was assisting minister, so I didn't have as much time to sketch.  Some years I have more time at church before the service, as I would arrive with my spouse for choir rehearsal and sketch while he rehearsed.  This year, I got there a bit early, but I used that time to take pictures.

I'm not always able to capture the quality of light that I'd like to, but I did like this shot:

I love the huge tree branch that our pastor found and brought in--it was the perfect size. 

I love the way it curves around the cross.

That image found its way into my spare sketch.

I thought about using different lines from Isaiah.  That language about being the repairer of the breach has spoken to me before.

This year, with news of the awful school shooting ringing in my head and so much hurricane repair left to do, I feel too exhausted to ponder how to repair all of our breaches.  I feel parched, in need of water. Thus, my sketch for this year.

Hearts of Flesh and Ash

This year we celebrate Ash Wednesday and Valentine's Day on the same day. 

In some ways they seem like competing holidays:  love vs. death.

Yet those of us who are conscious must realize, sometimes in moments that pierce us through, that all we love will be lost until we ourselves are lost.

We use a variety of ways to numb ourselves, to let us forget that reality for a moment or an evening.

Some of us adopt practices to keep us mindful of our dusty destiny.

Some of us can only face this message once a year.

Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Letting the Good Times Roll

How does your church celebrate Mardi Gras?  Do you offer an alternate celebration for those who want festivity but not drunkeness?  Does your church do the traditional Shrove Tuesday pancake supper?

My church used to do a pancake supper, complete with delicious bacon that left a smell that lingered in the fellowship hall for weeks.  But we did it on Ash Wednesday, which made a kind of sense.  Have a meal full of the ingredients that once we'd have been giving up for Lent, and then head over to the sanctuary to be reminded of our dusty destiny.

But that was back in the days when we had a men's club that would cook on certain key days; they also prepared Easter Sunday breakfast.  It seemed a throwback to a distant time, maybe in the 1950's, when men repaired things and cooked occasionally, just to show that they could.

Tonight I'll return home, while my spouse heads out to teach his evening class.  I'll stop by the library to pick up books that are being held for me.  I'll continue with my great guest room sorting project.  It makes a kind of Ash Wednesday sense, if not a Mardi Gras sense.

Actually, we are at the juxtaposition of many holidays that involve tidying:  a Candlemas tradition involves sweeping one's house, the Chinese New Year has a time of deep cleaning, and many of the days leading up to Lent involve a straightening. Many of our Mardi Gras and Shrove Tuesday traditions come out of the need to use up the excess.  In medieval times, most Christians would give up all sorts of luxury items for Lent, luxury items like milk, eggs, and alcohol.  So just before Lent came the using up of the luxury items--because you wouldn't just throw them away.  Hence the special Mardi Gras breads and treats and the drinking.

In the past, I've made special bread; if you have time, this blog post will walk you through the process.  I've made pancakes, but it always makes me somewhat sad to eat them alone.  I will not go out drinking tonight--I have to get up early tomorrow to go to spin class and then to work.

Mardi Gras is one of those holidays, much like Halloween, that makes me want to stay inside and bolt the door.  It seems dangerous, all these adults getting senselessly drunk.  Women, especially women alone, rarely fare well in scenes of mass drunkenness.

No, I will turn on the porch light and stay safe at home.  I'll continue with my tidying.  I'll do a bit of writing, perhaps.  Or maybe I'll just settle into a good book.  I'm close to finishing Imagine Me Gone; I'm at the point where I want to know how the author will tie up all these threads.

A Creative Sunday: Transfiguring Trash to Prepare for Ash Wednesday

As we drove to church with our car full of trash and an easel, my spouse said, "None of this is coming home with us, right?"  I said, "Right."

Once I had the three dresser drawers and the trash laid out, I worried that we might not have enough raw materials to create shadow boxes:

I needn't have worried.   This group of people are up to any task.

One group layered their drawer with pages from old hymnals:

I started with some old candles and the branches from the banana tree that Hurricane Irma destroyed.

When I started ripping an old map, people's eyes lit up.  The locations are places where I've lived, places that feel lost to me now:

One group took a wrapped box and went in a different direction--cool!  The box was wrapped for part of a Christmas display at my school, and then I used it in my Baptism of Jesus altarscape (it was covered in fabric, but it provided height).  And here it is, transfigured again:

I was impressed with what we were able to create in just 45 minutes:

Here is how the box covered with hymnal pages ended up:

And here's how we will use them in the chancel:

I'm calling this a success:  hurricane trash transfigured into works of art.  In some ways, it's the opposite of the Ash Wednesday message--except that eventually, these works of art go to the trash bin where they were headed in the first place.

Transfiguring the Muck Before It Becomes Ash

Today at our interactive service we'll do an interesting mash up of days.  Our church has beignets between services:  it's Mardi Gras.  Today on the liturgical calendar, it's Transfiguration Sunday.  I completely forgot that fact when I planned our activity today, which is an Ash Wednesday kind of group art project.

In fact, I completely forgot about Transfiguration Sunday until the end of all of our services when I was taking apart the installation art that I made to celebrate the baptism of our Lord.  But by then, I had already planned and announced the art project.

Right now, in my car, I have 3 dresser drawers from a piece of furniture damaged in the flooding that came with Hurricane Irma.  I have a vision for shadow boxes, so I've put some damaged stuff in the car, along with a few branches and fading blossoms and clippers in case we want more.  Last week I told people what I had in mind and invited them to bring their own images of hurricane damage.

In some ways, it's may lead us to an interesting discussion of both Transfiguration and Ash Wednesday.  We think of Transfiguration as this transcendent moment on the mountain--and it is.  But the important part of the story, one that may be overlooked, is that we don't get to stay on the mountain.  We can't build our booths up there.  We have to come back to the muck and the mess.

Our lives are made up of so much muck and mess.  And Ash Wednesday reminds us that this muck and mess dries up eventually--we're ash, and all too soon, we'll blow away.

How can we transfigure this muck and mess?  Ash Wednesday BEGS us to wrestle with this question, now, before it is too late.

Ash Wednesday Hearts

This year brings us an Ash Wednesday that falls on Valentine's Day.  I have always considered Valentine's Day to be the ultimate Hallmark holiday, a day manufactured to make us spend gobs and gobs of money to prove our love.

I would not be going to a restaurant on Wednesday anyway.  I don't mind having church duties.  I wonder if the restaurant trade will see a drop in people going out to eat because Valentine's Day falls on a high holy day.  Probably not.

Ash Wednesday reminds us of our ultimate destiny:  it all ends in ashes.  We might say, "Well, then, what's the point?"

I use Ash Wednesday as a call to consciousness.  Let me remember, before it all ends in ashes, that we should pay attention to what's important.

Valentine's Day is similar, a day to remind us of what's important.  What do we love?  Who do we love?  How do we show that love?

Celebrating these days at the same time seems oddly appropriate.  We are here for such a short time. We try to hard to preserve what we have, thus ensuring that we will have to watch what we love flake away from us. We are dust, and we will return to dust sooner than we care to think about. 

In the meantime, let us love well.  Let us create ashes because we burn so brightly, not because we let our love molder.

Ash Wednesday Is Coming

My thoughts on hurricane wreckage has left me thinking of Ash Wednesday.  I've also been doing a lot of scrubbing the dust away as I've been cleaning and sorting recently.  I know that I'm wiping away the detritus of stars, but it's still astonishing how much dust there is. 

It seems to regenerate.  We're shedding dust continuously, but we don't die immediately.  Is it time to retire the metaphor of dust for Ash Wednesday?

I'm not really suggesting that we do so.  But it is good, in this time before Ash Wednesday, to consider what metaphors we will use.

As I've decorated the chancel for the Baptism of our Lord, I've thought about past altarscapes and chancel decorations.  Some churches I've been part of have used the Christmas tree to create a rugged cross.

My current church uses fake trees (don't judge!), so we can't use that.  The most startling change to the chancel that my pastor ever did involved a stark, tree-like thing, with empty branches.

For Easter, we made origami birds, which transformed those branches.

Here's a different shot of the chancel:

He's also used battered sandals in his altarscapes.  We use a lot of burlap in our decorating.

 Some years, we have a variety of cactus plants.

I have a vision of an moving hurricane wreckage into the chancel area, but that's not really practical.  Still, as I drive by trees bent over from the storm, I have a vision.  It won't work for church, but it makes me think of possible art projects for Lent.  Stay tuned!