The Day Before Ash Wednesday

 Today is Mardi Gras, and it's also Shrove Tuesday. It's the day before Ash Wednesday, the day before Lent begins. The holidays of Shrove Tuesday, Carnival, and Mardi Gras have their roots in the self-denial of the Lenten season. These holidays are rooted in the fasting traditions of Lent and the need to get rid of all the ingredients that you'd be giving up during Lent: alcohol, sugar, eggs, and in some traditions, even dairy foods.

Mardi Gras and Carnival, holidays that come to us out of predominantly Catholic countries, certainly have a more festive air than Shrove Tuesday, which comes to us from some of the more dour traditions of England. The word shrove, which is the past tense of the verb to shrive, which means to seek absolution for sins through confession and penance, is far less festive than the Catholic terms for this day.

In the churches of my childhood, we had pancake suppers on Shrove Tuesday. In the church of my childhood, a church could count on its members gathering whenever the church doors were open. Thus we had Shrove Tuesday pancake suppers and Wednesday Bible study meetings and groups of all sorts gathering throughout the week.

These days, most mainline churches feel lucky if members come on Sunday, much less at other points in the week. Many churches have Confirmation classes during Sunday School time, unlike my experience of trooping back to church in the late afternoon of a Sunday. Many churches do the whole Holy Week journey on Palm Sunday because they know that church members won't be coming back on Thursday and Friday.

It feels like we should do something special on the day before Ash Wednesday, but I suspect many of us aren't interested in traditional Mardi Gras festivities which often include large amounts of alcohol.  This blog post has a recipe for a quick yeasted bread that is relatively healthy.  It's fairly simple to make, and easy to make more festive if that's your thing.

We have had a burst of spring-like weather in the mountains, and today is the last day to see the trolls at the arboretum.  It's a strange Mardi Gras/Shrove Tuesday celebration plan, but I have high hopes for it.

Recording of Sermon for Transfiguration Sunday, with Discursive Ramble about Giving Up Badmouthing for Lent

I went a bit off-manuscript with my sermon yesterday, adding some background about Lenten disciplines--if we decide to do something special for Lent, do we give up something or add something?  I did a bit of thinking-in-real-time about giving up saying anything bad about anyone:  people we know, famous people, everyone.  That part of the sermon felt most electric as I was giving it, and it's very near the end.

To see what I mean, you can view the recording here on my YouTube page.  You can read the manuscript by going to yesterday's post.

Launch Into Lent 2025

 Here we are in the last few days before Lent.  Tomorrow feels like part of Lent, even though it is not.  Let me collect some fragments.

--My sister and I have been thinking about ways to live healthier lives, ways to use Lent to undergird our efforts.  I have thought of some sort of point system, less complicated than the March Madness sports grids, but something that gives points and takes points away.  So, I might gain a point for every serving of fruits and vegetables, while losing a point for every alcoholic drink. I haven't worked out many details yet, but I wanted to capture this idea.

--I also love the idea of doing our Lenten disciplines not only for ourselves, but for the larger world.  In the example above, I like the idea of making decisions and gaining points and along the way,  using those points to help us remember to pray for the health of the larger world.

--I like the idea of adding something to our Lent, instead of denying ourselves.  But I do understand the power of denial.

--My thoughts about adding something tend to revolve around reading:  reading a poem a day, reading a devotional resource especially designed for Lent, reading my way through a book of the Bible.

--This year, I'm taking a seminary class that focuses on Christmas and Easter.  We will start exploring the Easter texts soon, and I think it will be interesting to go through Lent as we explore those texts.  I've enjoyed the deep dive into the Christmas texts which stretched Christmas into January and February.

--I need to write an Ash Wednesday sermon, which is challenging because the Ash Wednesday texts stay the same each year.  I want to say something different than last year, when I used some of my best ideas.  This year feels different:  my congregation has had more deaths and then, of course, there's the national and international changes. 

Let me finish this blogging so that I can move on to the other work of the day--and the joys of the first day of Spring Break at 2 of my schools.

Intensifying Lent in the Last Week of Lent

It is easy to lose sight of where we are in the liturgical calendar.  We've had a time change, we've had changes in weather, some of us are watching trees and flowers blooming earlier than we're used to.  It's easy to forget that we're about to enter the last week of Lent.

A week from tomorrow we will celebrate Palm Sunday, and Holy Week will begin.  That means that this week is the last week of Lent.

During Advent, I often wish that Advent lasted six weeks, like Lent.  During Lent, I often lose focus and wish that Lent could be more like Advent, no more than four weeks.

This morning, I thought about this last week of Lent.  Unlike many believers, I did not adopt a Lenten discipline.  When we get to the last days of Lent, I often wish I had done more.  This morning, it occurred to me that we could have a last week of intensity.  Whatever we wish we had spent the last five weeks doing, we could do every day.  If we're already doing a Lenten discipline every day, we could still schedule a week of intensity.  What would it happen to do our Lenten discipline twice a day?

It's easy enough if we've resolved to pray daily or to practice a creative discipline.    I say "easy," even as I realize that it's plenty difficult to schedule one daily session, much less two.

If we have been working our way through a daily devotional, we might need to be more creative.  If it's a book written by a single author, we could add more readings.  Or we could go back to the beginning of the book and read the first week of devotions for Lent along with the last week.  It might lead to interesting connections!

I write this post realizing that I'm unlikely to adopt a new Lenten discipline at this point.  But I am going to Quilt Camp, scheduled back in November, not scheduled as a Lenten discipline.  Perhaps I will add some Lenten focus to each day, as I go up the hill to the Faith Center to work on quilts.  Perhaps I will also add some non-fabric quilting focus to some days.  Hmm.  Let me see what happens!

Lenten Enrichments

 Yesterday I drove back from my parents' place in Williamsburg after a great week-end with them and my sister.   It was a holiday week-end, so I was not expecting the level of traffic I encountered.  In some ways, I prefer the kind of aggravating traffic I had on Friday--a total stop on the interstate because of a torn apart 18 wheeler and a burned up car--instead of traffic yesterday that zoomed above the speed limit and then 2 minutes later, we were back to stop and go, again and again this cycle.

Eventually I made it back, unloaded the car, and went for a short walk.  I did some school work while I ate, and then I went to my 6:30 class on Luke, taught by way of Zoom.  After class, I was both hyped up but very tired; it's strange how those two states can co-exist.  Deciding that I really needed sleep, I closed the computer.

I had a random thought float across my brain as I was spreading a quilt over the bed:  I wish that Kathleen Norris had a new book out.  And then I wondered if maybe she did--but instead of turning the computer back on, I went to my bookshelf and pulled out Dakota:  A Spiritual Geography, the first book of hers that I read and loved. 

I wish I had been keeping a blog back in the earliest years of this century when I first found this book.  It was published in 1993, which startled me last night when I opened it up for my bedtime reading.  That's 30 years ago!  I flipped to the back, where she gives credit to the publications that first published these essays, places like Gettysburg Review, North Dakota Quarterly, and Massachusetts Review.  I was happy to realize that those magazines are still publishing.

I thought back to when I first read this book, which expanded my view of what an essay could be.  I started trying to write something similar.  I started thinking about how essays could create a book length work.

When I pulled the book off my shelf, I wasn't thinking about the fact that the season of Lent is upon us.  This morning, I thought, tomorrow is Ash Wednesday which means today is Mardi Gras and Shrove Tuesday--if I'm going to adopt a Lenten discipline, the time is now.  And then I turned my attention to this book.  I think I will use this book as part of an increased spiritual study/devotion time--what will that look like?  Stay tuned.

Here is a quote from the book, which talks about the Dakotas both as a physical location and something larger:  "Dakota is a painful reminder of human limits, just as cities and shopping malls are attempts to deny them" (p. 2).  As I write these words, I'm thinking that the season of Lent can also be a painful reminder of human limits.  Our Lenten disciplines can be a way of helping us think about the ways that we want to avoid thinking about these limits and perhaps a way of helping us embrace these limits.

As we eat our Shrove Tuesday pancakes or our Mardi Gras King Cakes, as we indulge and/or plan for how we will avoid indulging, let us plan for our Lenten disciplines.  Or maybe discipline is not the word for our current time--we've had an awful lot of discipline imposed on us for the past few years.  Maybe heightened attention would be better--or here's something I like even better:  enrichment.

Let us plan our Lenten enrichments!

For a more traditional blog post about Shrove Tuesday and Mardi Gras, this post on my theology blog might be what you wanted.  Or maybe you wanted a recipe for a festive cake/bread that's easy; in this blog post, I give you a recipe and photos.

Last Sunday in Lent, First Sunday of Passiontide

This Sunday is the fifth Sunday in Lent.  We could think of it as the last Sunday of Lent, since Holy Week is a different time in the calendar of the church.  An older way of thinking about this day is that this Sunday begins Passiontide, the two weeks before Easter.  Next Sunday is Palm Sunday, which will mark a different season, that time when we travel with Jesus from the praise of Palm Sunday, to the last encounters with disciples before the crucifixion to the crucifixion itself to the tomb to resurrection.

But before we get to Palm Sunday and the increased pace that it portends, there is time to stay with the austerity of Lent a bit longer.  If we have abandoned our Lenten discipline, we could return to it for this first week of Passiontide.

It is also part of an older tradition to mark the 5th Sunday of Lent as Passion Sunday.  These days, many of us will compress much of crucifixion part of the story into one day.  Many churches go directly from palms to passion on Palm Sunday, since so many of us can't get back to church for Good Friday.

We could use this time between the 5th Sunday of Lent and the Saturday before Easter to focus our attention on the passion of Christ.  We could take each day and focus on a station of the cross.  You can find a traditional version here  The Episcopal church has put together a resource that ties the suffering of Jesus to current issues, which you can find here. Or maybe we want to focus on the seven last words of Christ from the cross.

Our Easter will be richer if we spend time thinking about what Jesus suffered--and we might want to think about why he suffered.  Crucifixion was a punishment reserved for those who were seen as an enemy of the state, the highest threat to the governing empire of Rome.  Jesus wasn't stoned or beheaded, other types of capital punishment of the time.  What part of the message of Jesus and his life so threatened Rome?  How does the message of love so upset the established order?

And how can we be that love in the world?  How can our lives be an incarnation of that love?

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.

Preparing for Lent

Today is the day before Lent begins, Mardi Gras, and it's also Shrove Tuesday. It's the day before Ash Wednesday, the day before Lent begins. Mardi Gras and Carnival, holidays that come to us out of predominantly Catholic countries, certainly have a more festive air than Shrove Tuesday, which comes to us from some of the more dour traditions of England. The word shrove, which is the past tense of the verb to shrive, which means to seek absolution for sins through confession and penance, is far less festive than the Catholic terms for this day.

Will this be the year that we go back to having pancake suppers on the day before Ash Wednesday?  Or did we give up on those long ago, even before the pandemic made it unsafe to gather in groups?  Most of the churches that I've attended wouldn't expect that people would come to church on both Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday, no matter how delicious the pancakes or how meaningful the evening service.

Some of us will spend today thinking about whether or not we want to adopt a special Lenten discipline.  Some of us will give up something for Lent:  chocolate or gossip or sugar or caffeine or social media.  But there are different approaches to Lent that make for a more meaningful season.

Poet Kelli Russell Agodon had this nugget of insight in an exchange on Twitter: "I gave up sweets and chocolate for no reason for WAY too many years. Yes, I've switched things up--how can I be useful as opposed to 'how can I sacrifice.' The difference is huge."  She's decided to post a meaningful poem a day, by poets who are writing now and need some encouragement.

There are many ways of being useful.  We can donate time.  We can donate money.  We can resolve to go about in the world with cheerful faces.

Or maybe we've been so useful that we're burnt to a crisp.  Maybe this is the Lent that we want to add something; traditionally we would add more devotion time, more prayer.  Maybe this is the year we want to add some deep self-care:  a spa day a week, a massage, a retreat.

Or maybe this is the Lent where we finally believe that we are enough:  we don't have to do more, to be more, to give up more.  God loves us, just as we are right now. 

Lenten Disciplines in a Time of a Pandemic

I am sobered by how our social landscape has changed in just a few weeks.  A few weeks ago, my church had made no changes in the face of a new virus.  We passed the peace with hugs and handshakes.  We anointed with oil.  We didn't use gloves when we touched food.  We had more hand sanitizer than your average church, but that's because we have more than our share of elderly and immunocompromised parishioners.

At the end of last week, my church released new guidelines:  we would pass the peace without shaking hands or hugging.  We would use gloves to prepare for coffee hour.

At the end of this week, another set of new guidelines:  no passing of the peace at all.  We will still gather to worship, but all other gatherings are canceled--and it won't surprise me if we cancel worship soon.  I have pastor friends across the southeast, and many of them are announcing complete church shutdowns, although many have plans for online assembly and/or support.

We had planned to have a Wednesday night Lenten Prayer, with a different prayer practice each week--that event is canceled.  We had one session on Wednesday night, and it was me and another woman, so not many people will feel sadness at that cancellation.  As the person in charge of Lenten Prayer, I felt both sadness and relief at the announcement of that closure.

This morning, I thought about the Lenten practices across the nation that might need to be changed or abandoned at this midpoint of the liturgical season.  But maybe we can use this time to adopt a new practice.

Maybe we want to embrace this time of social distancing.  Maybe we want to explore solitude in this time of a new illness.  Maybe we want to be alone with God.  Centering prayer seems like a good practice in a time of pandemic.

Or maybe we want to step up our efforts to care for the poor and dispossessed.  As we buy extra supplies for our households, we could buy a bag of food for the local food pantry.  We can send cards to those who need to self-isolate or make phone calls.  We can check on those who need to practice more severe self-isolation, and if appropriate, help them get the supplies they need.

We can always return to one of the most ancient disciplines:  prayer for those in charge, prayer for those affected.

And maybe some of this enforced down time will give us the space we've been craving to try other disciplines.  We could keep a journal.  We could sketch or paint.  We might finally have time to read the great theologians we've always meant to discover.  This list could go on and on.

We live in a time period that has seen the exponential increase in distractions, along with an exponential increase in new virus cases and exposures.  Let us resolve to take up our Lenten disciplines and stay focused.

Writing Prompts: Justice and Holy Week

I sent this prompt to my Lenten Journaling Group, and I thought it was worth sharing more widely.

As I think of the week past and the week to come, two prompts come to mind. Feel free to use them as you like and/or as the Spirit moves you:

Writing Prompt 1:

We've had a great week of justice action in our church and larger community in South Florida. Last week I scribbled on a bulletin, and yesterday morning, I started to think about a poem. These ideas spurred my creativity:

We have built our house of justice in hurricane country.

We have made a home in the swamp of despair

In this abandoned waste dump, we have claimed a homestead.

If we then create some fill in the blanks, maybe we get some different options:

We have built ________ in hurricane country.

We have built our house of justice in ________.

We have made ______ in the swamp of despair.

In this _______, we have claimed a homestead.

In this abandoned waste dump, we have claimed __________.

If you want to tie your journaling back to Bible reading, return to the Psalms and notice how the Psalmist often uses similar language for striking effect--different metaphors, to be sure, but similar effect. Think of Psalm 137, with it's image of weeping by the rivers of Babylon and hanging harps in the poplars. I am guessing that the writer of that Psalm didn't really go to the river to weep and hang a harp in the tree--it's an image of deep sadness and abandonment, and it works beautifully.

The not-often-read book of Lamentations too. And many of the prophets. And Jesus himself was known for speaking/teaching in odd parables. It's a way to jolt our brains out of complacency.

Writing Option #2

Sunday is Palm Sunday and/or Passion Sunday--the beginning of Holy Week. We will be hearing stories that many of us have heard many times before. How can we hear them with fresh ears.

One year I was startled to realize how much I identified with Pontius Pilate as an administrator. That year, I saw the Good Friday story in a different light. One year I read Mary Oliver's "The Poet Thinks about the Donkey" (you can read it here: https://predmore.blogspot.com/2016/03/poem-poet-thinks-about-donkey-by-mary.html). I hadn't thought much about the donkey that carries Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and my perspective shifted.

Here are some ideas to get you thinking. Tell the story from the perspective of:

--the person who cleans up after the last supper

--the towels used by Jesus to wash the feet of the disciples

--the cross itself

--an indifferent observer on Palm Sunday

--the sibling of Jesus who had always seen this day (Good Friday? Palm Sunday?) coming

--the disciple we don't usually hear about

--the rooster that crows three times

Here's hoping for a creative week-end, in all the ways our creativity can manifest itself!

Lenten Journaling Group: Collage

We began our evening with prayer, and then we went to a table of magazines I had laid out: gardening magazines, photography magazines, back issues of Oprah's magazine, and some spiritual magazines.

I invited everyone to choose a few magazines, and we returned to our seats.

Then I read Isaiah 43: 18-21:


Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.
19 I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.
20 The wild animals will honor me,
the jackals and the ostriches;
for I give water in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert,
to give drink to my chosen people,
21 the people whom I formed for myself
so that they might declare my praise.


I read it again. Then we looked through magazines, ripping and cutting out anything that appealed to us, words, and/or images.

We turned to our journals/paper. Most of us pasted images to paper in a variety of ways:

I then read the Isaiah passage again, and we discussed what we had put together. Most of us assembled images that we liked. Perhaps they reminded us of our friends. Maybe we thought about places we had traveled. I assembled this image after several weeks of work stress, and it doesn't take a trained psychologist to analyze what it means.

We were intrigued by one approach of one of our group:

She found a solid chunk of text and cut it into strips. Then she wrote the lines from Isaiah in between.

I invited us to return to our images at some point later in the week. Perhaps we want to write more or sketch more deeply. Maybe we want to sit in quiet contemplation. God might use this process to speak to us.

We closed with prayer.

Passiontide

We used to call the last two weeks of Lent Passiontide--today, the 5th Sunday in Lent, would mark the beginning of Passiontide, which would last through Holy Saturday.






In these days of compression and short attention spans, many churches celebrate all of Holy Week on what once would be called Palm Sunday.






I yearn for a return to the old ways, when crosses would be draped in black or purple for these last two weeks of Lent.






I want to slow down, to savor this season, the austerity of it, the Lenten practices which give our days a discipline.






I want to take time to ponder this Lenten journey from ash








to resurrection.






I want to take my lesson from the monks and others who call us to the old ways, who remind us that those ways still have much to teach us.

This morning, I'm wondering how our experience of Holy Week might change if we stretched it out, rather than trying to contain it all into one Sunday morning. Two weeks to spend with one of the central events of our faith: how might we change?

At a Lenten Journaling Workshop: Midway Through

A week ago, I was out of town, so our church's Lenten Journaling Workshop didn't meet.  Last night, we met again and did some thinking about parables--although we might not have always known we were thinking about parables!

First, I handed out 4 slips of paper in different colors. Each person had all four colors. On the green slip, we wrote a natural object. On the lavender sheet, we wrote an action or a verb. On the ivory sheet, we wrote a tool. On the salmon colored slip, we wrote an arts and crafts supply or medium.

Then we pulled slips of paper out of a box. We ended up with these words:

sunset
throw
pen
watercolor painting

We wrote/sketched/pondered for 10 minutes with the prompt to write and to use these words as we thought about what God is like.

Then I read Matthew 13: 24-35, which contains two parables where Jesus tries to explain what the kingdom of God/heaven is like. We talked about how the word "kingdom" might mean something different than "heaven," which is a common translation. What might it mean? Perhaps the world as God conceives it.

We then pulled all the slips out of the box:

Ivory:
drill
drill
pen


Green:
pine tree
river reeds
sunset


lavender:
throw
sharing
dance


salmon:
watercolor painting
embroidery thread
brushes


We then took another 10 minutes to write/draw/respond to create parables of our own. The last thing we did was to try transforming our ideas into haiku. You may or may not remember that haiku is a 3 line structure. The first line has 5 syllables, the second has 12 syllables, and the 3rd line has 5 syllables. Haiku specialists would want me to tell you that there's much more to haiku than the structure, so now I have.

We took some time at the end to read what we wrote, if we wanted, or to discuss our approach.

We talked about why Jesus would teach in parables. I think it's to shock us out of our complacency--Jesus uses some bizarre comparisons to explain God. For example, yeast would be seen as something that pollutes perfectly good bread dough. It would be as if I said, "The Kingdom of God is like mold that takes over your bathroom when you're away on vacation and the AC stops working."

We talked about haiku and the value of condensing ideas into just a few syllables. And then it was time to go.

The Midway Point of Lent

It is the long season of Lent, when we wait for our hearts to shift, just as the seasons are shifting.

Our hearts are brittle, even as they stretch towards something we can't quite identify.

Our hearts may feel like a container made of stone.

But even in that container, we find a reserve of holy water, a bit of love to sustain us through this season.

The purple paraments remind us that we're not yet ready to set the altar for the long green season where everything grows in a boundless way.

But we see the shoots of a new growth. 

We know that soon we'll be in a relentless battle against all the weeds that would strangle the work.  Let us rest in this season a bit longer before we commit to resurrection.

Report on Our First Lenten Journaling Session

Months ago, I volunteered to lead a Lenten journaling group that would meet every Wednesday of Lent.  We did a quick session before Ash Wednesday.  Last night was our first longer session.

We worked our way through an ancient practice, lectio divina. First, I read this passage out loud, and everyone listened to see what words and phrases leapt out at them:

1 Corinthians 3: 10-16: 10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. 11For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. 12Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— 13the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done. 14If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward. 15If the work is burned, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire. 16 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?

We spent 3 minutes in silent contemplation, and then I read the passage again. For 10 minutes, we responded in whatever way we wanted; most people seemed to use a combination of words and images.

I read the passage again, and we spent another 10 minutes in individual responding. Some of us started a new page, while others continued to work on their first response.

To close, I read the passage one more time, and we took 3 minutes to finish our responses. We then spent some time discussing any insights that we had.

Words that jumped out at people:
grace
God's temple
revealed with fire
God's Spirit dwells in you
foundation

We talked about the unsettling aspect of this passage, the idea that some of what we're building will be destroyed. We talked about the fire.  We talked about the idea of building on the work that has already been done. We talked a bit about our process too: did we use words or images first?

As we worked our way through the night, I was also thinking about my response as a group leader.  I had explained the timing of it all, but I still felt this odd unease when people stopped before time was up.  But I noticed that some people paused and then returned to their work.

I was happy that I, too, was able to respond, even though I was keeping track of time.  First I wrote down the words, and then I started to draw:

I was surprised by the different fire imagery that emerged.  There's the obvious flames.  But there's also an image that looks like a candle or a lamp--and then the star, too, is a flame.

It was an interesting night.  I'm looking forward to next week.   

First Thoughts on Lenten Jouraling Journey

I have been thinking about offering a journaling class for my congregation for Lent.  Here are some of my initial thoughts:

I'd use some elements of the journaling class that I just took:

--each participant would get 4 of the good markers in 4 different colors, which we could (theoretically) blend to make other colors--I must confess, I wasn't good at blending marker colors, but others were. I'd also buy us some cheaper black markers in 2 different fineness grades, felt tip, not ball point or gel.

--I'd have people buy their own sketchbooks or paper--and of course, we have plenty in the arts and crafts closet. I know that people are particular about paper.

--We'd meet at 6:30 on Wednesdays to sketch and/or journal together. Each week, I'd prepare a different kind of journaling experience (one week with an art prompt, one week a collage prompt, one week maybe a poem to sketch, maybe some guided imagining/imaging--there's all kinds of stuff!), but of course, people would be free to do their own thing. People could share their work or not. I chose 6:30 so that people could participate for a bit and still go to choir.

--Would we want food as part of the Wed. night meeting? I'm fairly sure that I could not make that happen week after week all by myself. We could brownbag or potluck or a different person bring a crockpot of soup each week.

--How long should the meeting last? I'm thinking 6:30 to 8:00, but 6:30 to 7:30 could be good, with the option to stay longer if people wanted.

--We'd start on Ash Wed, but just to hand out materials, and then to go to Ash Wed. service at 7:00. We'd finish on the Wed. of Holy Week. I'm out of town on March 27, but I could prepare materials in advance.

--I'm thinking of having a different poem and a different meditation each week, plus a Bible passage. I'd hand the ones for the coming week out at the end of the Wednesday time together. Maybe I'd also send a short prompt/reminder/suggestion every 2-3 days by way of e-mail (or paper mail for those who don't have e-mail).

--I've also thought of an online option for those who can't attend on Wed. I've become a bit concerned about Facebook in terms of the ethics of the company, and I have artist friends who refuse to use FB when it comes to sharing creative work--FB isn't proactive enough to prevent stealing and doesn't step in forcefully when work is stolen. I've never had that happen, but it does concern me.

I've thought of a shared blog site open only to members of the Lenten Journaling Journey. That way if people couldn't attend, they could post work, see the work of others who are willing to share, and I'd post a write up of our time together each week.

It's also fine with me if we don't explore online options.

--Would participants prefer a consistent theme (for example, my online journaling class that I did in the Fall revolved around doors and thresholds)? Or would people be more interested in a variety that would go where the Spirit moved us each week?

I'm interested to see how this develops--stay tuned!

Lenten Discipline: Tulips and Pumpkins

I've gotten away from my Lenten discipline of mixing holidays and seasons and taking pictures.  Last night, I tried to return.  I had a tulip from my office who was spending time with us, and pumpkins which have been on the porch since October:

Later, I moved the rotting pumpkin to the part of the yard where I've been leaving them.  Here the pumpkin is on top of other pumpkin corpses, but they blend into the earth:

I thought about other mixes:  the tulip and the basil (spring and summer)--not as interesting.

I couldn't quite capture the tulip and the rosemary cut into a Christmas tree shape--but it's interesting how I changed the color of the tulip:

On this first day of Spring, I see this mixing of metaphors that shows where so many of us are, both seasonally (first day of spring, as yet another blizzard-making storm prepares to travel through the northeast) and in our lives (still young, yet seeing our mortality on the horizon).

Fish Skeleton Palm Fronds and a Return to the Multiseasonal Desk

I have decided to embrace my unusual Lenten discipline:  creating multiseasonal pictures on my desk, porch, and other places.  I was on the lookout for opportunities while in Tampa, but found none.

I did see this palm frond on the edge of a dock.  At first, it looked like a fish skeleton to me.

I do think there's a Lenten vibe in these pictures.  Here's the longer view:

Yesterday I bought some small pots of flowers for our Thursday Spring into Health Meet and Greet Open House.  Before I put them on desks around campus, I couldn't resist playing a bit.

I bought shamrocks, tulips (yet to bloom), and daffodils. 

My little pumpkin is still holding on. 

But let's not forget the fun we can have with a late-blooming poinsettia.

The Progress of Lent

We are three quarters through this Lenten season.  Soon, we will put away the purple paraments.

But for now, we still dwell in the land of ash.

Soon we will display different flowers, the lilies, the daffodils, the tulips.

For now, we sit with our bruised and broken petals.

We long to see new blooms poking through the mulch of our hearts.

For now, we sit in our prisons.

We have heard the good news.  We wait for deliverance.

We wait.

Lenten Discipline: Mingled Seasons on the Porch

Last night after dinner, I decided to do some more creative play.  I had brought some of the plastic Easter eggs from my office, and I started with the pumpkin that's still in decent shape, just a spot of rot on the side:

In artistic terms, I like this one with the rotting pumpkin better.  I see life out of death:

I also used a candle that I got at a candlelight vigils for the teenagers shot at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School on Ash Wednesday:

In terms of cheerful colors, I love this one:

An interesting angle:

And to end, why not bring in the autumnal mums that have mostly died, another life in the midst of death image: