Ashes to Ashes
We gathered to celebrate my grandmother’s life this Ash Wednesday. Marked with the cross smudged on foreheads, we visited, sharing memories, laughing, crying.
Posts
Ashes to Ashes
Ashes to ashes Dust to dust – Homes destroyed By earthquakes Now covered in dust.
What God Can Do with Dust
Our fifth frozen embryo transfer (FET) was on Ash Wednesday last year. Our first pregnancy ended on an Ash Wednesday three years before that. In between those experiences, Lent became a time not for deepening my connection with God but to try and wrangle my body into pregnancy through fertility treatments. I did not know […]
A Poem on the Eve of Lent
God’s beloved dust, fabric of the universe— of planets newly discovered and ruins ancient, broken and us. God’s beloved dust, we’ll walk into wilderness on a Wednesday— a wilderness of words and want and wonder, a wilderness for the wise and the weary. God’s beloved dust, ushered from pew to pastor, they will pause. Eyes […]
Dear Celebrity
Dear Celebrity, The first time I met you was a very memorable occasion. I’d met celebrities of your stature before, but they’d all been a meet-and-greet sort of thing or strictly business—the kind of official interactions where it didn’t matter at all who I was. Honestly, I haven’t liked many of them. So when I […]
Swallowing a Bitter Pill: A Lenten Journey
“I’m giving up Lent for Lent!” It is a common joke around this time of year when worship leaders start planning for the Lenten season. I know I’ve said it before — even meant it. Lent can be a big, busy, bitter pill to swallow. Ash Wednesday is one half of the encapsulation of Lent. […]
“Waters of Love” and “Birth Water”: New Poetry
Pastor and poet Sharon Benton sent these poems last month with the comment, “It’s the end of January, so baptism texts may be over…” And yet the themes of void, chaos, formlessness, and being born to new life are timely as we approach Ash Wednesday and the reflective season of Lent. In Mark Jesus’ baptism […]
Do You Want to Be Made Well?
A sermon on John 5:1-9 “Do you want to be made well?” What an Ash Wednesday question. On a day where we traditionally hear about our own sinfulness and are faced with our own mortality, “to dust you shall return,” what a question to consider. Of course we want to be made well. Of course […]
