Thursday, February 26, 2015
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Prayer
Loving Father,
all the fancy words
in the world,
expressed in eloquent prose,
decorated with emotion,
spoken with conviction,
cannot compete with a heartfelt
'sorry'
when all other words fail.
There are times
when we are all too aware
of our limitations,
conscious of sin,
and the distance it creates between us.
Sometimes 'sorry'
is all the heart can bear to say aloud.
It is only you
who can read and understand
the language of our hearts,
only you who can translate our 'sorry'
into the prayer we would have prayed,
if we had the words within us.
Then you forgive,
and having forgiven
surround us in an embrace of love,
drawing us close to your heart,
as it was always meant to be.
Thank you, Loving Father,
that you listen to hearts,
as well as voices
Thank you.
in the world,
expressed in eloquent prose,
decorated with emotion,
spoken with conviction,
cannot compete with a heartfelt
'sorry'
when all other words fail.
There are times
when we are all too aware
of our limitations,
conscious of sin,
and the distance it creates between us.
Sometimes 'sorry'
is all the heart can bear to say aloud.
It is only you
who can read and understand
the language of our hearts,
only you who can translate our 'sorry'
into the prayer we would have prayed,
if we had the words within us.
Then you forgive,
and having forgiven
surround us in an embrace of love,
drawing us close to your heart,
as it was always meant to be.
Thank you, Loving Father,
that you listen to hearts,
as well as voices
Thank you.
Monday, February 23, 2015
Frederick Buechner's Questions for Lent
IN MANY CULTURES there is an ancient custom of giving a tenth of
each year's income to some holy use. For Christians, to observe the
forty days of Lent is to do the same thing with roughly a tenth of each
year's days. After being baptized by John in the river Jordan, Jesus
went off alone into the wilderness where he spent forty days asking
himself the question what it meant to be Jesus. During Lent, Christians
are supposed to ask one way or another what it means to be themselves.
If you had to bet everything you have on whether there is a God or
whether there isn't, which side would get your money and why?
When you look at your face in the mirror, what do you see in it that you most like and what do you see in it that you most deplore?
If you had only one last message to leave to the handful of people who are most important to you, what would it be in twenty-five words or less?
Of all the things you have done in your life, which is the one you would most like to undo? Which is the one that makes you happiest to remember?
Is there any person in the world, or any cause, that, if circumstances called for it, you would be willing to die for?
If this were the last day of your life, what would you do with it?
To hear yourself try to answer questions like these is to begin to hear something not only of who you are but of both what you are becoming and what you are failing to become. It can be a pretty depressing business all in all, but if sack-cloth and ashes are at the start of it, something like Easter may be at the end.
- Originally published in Wishful Thinking and later in Beyond Words
When you look at your face in the mirror, what do you see in it that you most like and what do you see in it that you most deplore?
If you had only one last message to leave to the handful of people who are most important to you, what would it be in twenty-five words or less?
Of all the things you have done in your life, which is the one you would most like to undo? Which is the one that makes you happiest to remember?
Is there any person in the world, or any cause, that, if circumstances called for it, you would be willing to die for?
If this were the last day of your life, what would you do with it?
To hear yourself try to answer questions like these is to begin to hear something not only of who you are but of both what you are becoming and what you are failing to become. It can be a pretty depressing business all in all, but if sack-cloth and ashes are at the start of it, something like Easter may be at the end.
- Originally published in Wishful Thinking and later in Beyond Words
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Old Testament Reading: Lent 1
Genesis 9:8-17
Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him,
"As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you,
and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth."
God said, "This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth."
God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth."
Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him,
"As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you,
and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth."
God said, "This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth."
God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth."
Friday, February 20, 2015
Did you not know what the Holy One can do with dust?
by Jan Richardson (click here for original post)
It is a strange anointing, this
cross that comes to mark us as Lent begins. Ashes, dust, dirt: the stuff we
walk upon, that we sweep away, that we work to get rid of, now comes to remind
us who we are, where we are from, where we are bound.
How terrible. And how marvelous,
that God should feel so tender toward the dust as to create us from it, and
return us to it, breathing through us all the while. Even after releasing us
from the blessed dust at the last, God continues to breathe us toward whatever
it is we are becoming.
Ash Wednesday hits close to home
once again. My husband’s ashes remain in the keeping of my brother, waiting in
a beautiful wooden box that Scott has built for them. This spring we will bury
the ashes on the family farm where Gary and I were married not so long ago. And
we will breathe, and we will bless the earth from which we have come, and we
will give thanks for the astonishing gift that passed too briefly among us but
whose love, tenacious as ever, goes with us still.
This is a blessing I wrote for Ash
Wednesday a couple of years ago....
Blessing the Dust
A Blessing for Ash Wednesday
A Blessing for Ash Wednesday
All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners
or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—
Did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?
what the Holy One
can do with dust?
This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.
we freely say
we are scorched.
This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.
This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.
So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are
but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made,
and the stars that blaze
in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made,
and the stars that blaze
in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.
–Jan Richardson
It
is a strange anointing, this cross that comes to mark us as Lent
begins. Ashes, dust, dirt: the stuff we walk upon, that we sweep away,
that we work to get rid of, now comes to remind us who we are, where we
are from, where we are bound.
How terrible. And how marvelous, that God should feel so tender toward the dust as to create us from it, and return us to it, breathing through us all the while. Even after releasing us from the blessed dust at the last, God continues to breathe us toward whatever it is we are becoming.
Ash Wednesday hits close to home once again. My husband’s ashes remain in the keeping of my brother, waiting in a beautiful wooden box that Scott has built for them. This spring we will bury the ashes on the family farm where Gary and I were married not so long ago. And we will breathe, and we will bless the earth from which we have come, and we will give thanks for the astonishing gift that passed too briefly among us but whose love, tenacious as ever, goes with us still.
This is a blessing I wrote for Ash Wednesday a couple of years ago and want to share with you as the day approaches again. I would also love to share the coming season with you on the new online retreat I’m offering for Lent. If you haven’t already signed up for the Beloved Lenten Retreat, you’ll find info about it below.
- See more at: http://paintedprayerbook.com/2015/02/13/ash-wednesday-the-terrible-marvelous-dust/#sthash.dKkYMFXS.dpuf
How terrible. And how marvelous, that God should feel so tender toward the dust as to create us from it, and return us to it, breathing through us all the while. Even after releasing us from the blessed dust at the last, God continues to breathe us toward whatever it is we are becoming.
Ash Wednesday hits close to home once again. My husband’s ashes remain in the keeping of my brother, waiting in a beautiful wooden box that Scott has built for them. This spring we will bury the ashes on the family farm where Gary and I were married not so long ago. And we will breathe, and we will bless the earth from which we have come, and we will give thanks for the astonishing gift that passed too briefly among us but whose love, tenacious as ever, goes with us still.
This is a blessing I wrote for Ash Wednesday a couple of years ago and want to share with you as the day approaches again. I would also love to share the coming season with you on the new online retreat I’m offering for Lent. If you haven’t already signed up for the Beloved Lenten Retreat, you’ll find info about it below.
- See more at: http://paintedprayerbook.com/2015/02/13/ash-wednesday-the-terrible-marvelous-dust/#sthash.dKkYMFXS.dpuf
It
is a strange anointing, this cross that comes to mark us as Lent
begins. Ashes, dust, dirt: the stuff we walk upon, that we sweep away,
that we work to get rid of, now comes to remind us who we are, where we
are from, where we are bound.
How terrible. And how marvelous, that God should feel so tender toward the dust as to create us from it, and return us to it, breathing through us all the while. Even after releasing us from the blessed dust at the last, God continues to breathe us toward whatever it is we are becoming.
Ash Wednesday hits close to home once again. My husband’s ashes remain in the keeping of my brother, waiting in a beautiful wooden box that Scott has built for them. This spring we will bury the ashes on the family farm where Gary and I were married not so long ago. And we will breathe, and we will bless the earth from which we have come, and we will give thanks for the astonishing gift that passed too briefly among us but whose love, tenacious as ever, goes with us still.
This is a blessing I wrote for Ash Wednesday a couple of years ago and want to share with you as the day approaches again. I would also love to share the coming season with you on the new online retreat I’m offering for Lent. If you haven’t already signed up for the Beloved Lenten Retreat, you’ll find info about it below.
Blessing the Dust
A Blessing for Ash Wednesday
All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners
or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—
Did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?
This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.
This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.
This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.
So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are
but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made,
and the stars that blaze
in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.
–Jan Richardson
- See more at: http://paintedprayerbook.com/2015/02/13/ash-wednesday-the-terrible-marvelous-dust/#sthash.dKkYMFXS.dpuf
How terrible. And how marvelous, that God should feel so tender toward the dust as to create us from it, and return us to it, breathing through us all the while. Even after releasing us from the blessed dust at the last, God continues to breathe us toward whatever it is we are becoming.
Ash Wednesday hits close to home once again. My husband’s ashes remain in the keeping of my brother, waiting in a beautiful wooden box that Scott has built for them. This spring we will bury the ashes on the family farm where Gary and I were married not so long ago. And we will breathe, and we will bless the earth from which we have come, and we will give thanks for the astonishing gift that passed too briefly among us but whose love, tenacious as ever, goes with us still.
This is a blessing I wrote for Ash Wednesday a couple of years ago and want to share with you as the day approaches again. I would also love to share the coming season with you on the new online retreat I’m offering for Lent. If you haven’t already signed up for the Beloved Lenten Retreat, you’ll find info about it below.
Blessing the Dust
A Blessing for Ash Wednesday
All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners
or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—
Did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?
This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.
This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.
This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.
So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are
but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made,
and the stars that blaze
in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.
–Jan Richardson
- See more at: http://paintedprayerbook.com/2015/02/13/ash-wednesday-the-terrible-marvelous-dust/#sthash.dKkYMFXS.dpuf
It
is a strange anointing, this cross that comes to mark us as Lent
begins. Ashes, dust, dirt: the stuff we walk upon, that we sweep away,
that we work to get rid of, now comes to remind us who we are, where we
are from, where we are bound.
How terrible. And how marvelous, that God should feel so tender toward the dust as to create us from it, and return us to it, breathing through us all the while. Even after releasing us from the blessed dust at the last, God continues to breathe us toward whatever it is we are becoming.
Ash Wednesday hits close to home once again. My husband’s ashes remain in the keeping of my brother, waiting in a beautiful wooden box that Scott has built for them. This spring we will bury the ashes on the family farm where Gary and I were married not so long ago. And we will breathe, and we will bless the earth from which we have come, and we will give thanks for the astonishing gift that passed too briefly among us but whose love, tenacious as ever, goes with us still.
This is a blessing I wrote for Ash Wednesday a couple of years ago and want to share with you as the day approaches again. I would also love to share the coming season with you on the new online retreat I’m offering for Lent. If you haven’t already signed up for the Beloved Lenten Retreat, you’ll find info about it below.
Blessing the Dust
A Blessing for Ash Wednesday
All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners
or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—
Did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?
This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.
This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.
This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.
So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are
but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made,
and the stars that blaze
in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.
–Jan Richardson
- See more at: http://paintedprayerbook.com/2015/02/13/ash-wednesday-the-terrible-marvelous-dust/#sthash.dKkYMFXS.dpuf
How terrible. And how marvelous, that God should feel so tender toward the dust as to create us from it, and return us to it, breathing through us all the while. Even after releasing us from the blessed dust at the last, God continues to breathe us toward whatever it is we are becoming.
Ash Wednesday hits close to home once again. My husband’s ashes remain in the keeping of my brother, waiting in a beautiful wooden box that Scott has built for them. This spring we will bury the ashes on the family farm where Gary and I were married not so long ago. And we will breathe, and we will bless the earth from which we have come, and we will give thanks for the astonishing gift that passed too briefly among us but whose love, tenacious as ever, goes with us still.
This is a blessing I wrote for Ash Wednesday a couple of years ago and want to share with you as the day approaches again. I would also love to share the coming season with you on the new online retreat I’m offering for Lent. If you haven’t already signed up for the Beloved Lenten Retreat, you’ll find info about it below.
Blessing the Dust
A Blessing for Ash Wednesday
All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners
or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—
Did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?
This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.
This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.
This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.
So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are
but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made,
and the stars that blaze
in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.
–Jan Richardson
- See more at: http://paintedprayerbook.com/2015/02/13/ash-wednesday-the-terrible-marvelous-dust/#sthash.dKkYMFXS.dpuf
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Being in the Body
By Taryn Deaton (click here for original post)
My three-year-old niece refers to being naked as “being in the body” (as in, “Aunt Taryn, why is he (shirtless man) in the body?”). Everyone in our family thinks this is hilarious and no one knows where she learned it. Secretly, we all hope she never learns the word “naked”!
As a Christian, the phrase “being in the body” (not necessarily my niece’s meaning) resonates with me for several reasons. First, because Jesus is Emmanuel or “God is with us.” God’s son came to Earth and lived among us in a human body. Jesus’ suffering and death involved physical and emotional pain. Through Jesus’ bodily rising, our bodies too are redeemed.
This phrase also resonates with me because God sees us “in the body.” I don’t mean that God sees us naked (which God probably can). What I mean is: God sees us for who we really are, warts and everything. We can hide nothing from God.
Additionally, “being in the body” is what we are truly called to be. We are called to be present, to be in the moment, to be alert and aware of what is happening around us. It is only when we are fully present that we can be attentive to the needs of those around us and be ready to hear God’s voice as to how we should respond.
Lastly, this phrase has meaning because we are all “in the body” of Christ. We are members of a community called to carry out God’s mission in the world, each created with unique gifts to be used for God’s purposes. We are diverse, but we are one body.
As ashes are imposed on Ash Wednesday, we are reminded to “remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Ash Wednesday causes us to confront the reality that we are “in the body” for a finite period of time and pushes us to consider what we are doing with that time.
God made us and put us on Earth for a reason: To be co-creators in bringing about God’s Kingdom. In Psalm 25 we read, “Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long.”
Like the Psalmist, we cry out to God for guidance as to how we should live. Thankfully, God responds with a baby boy, born in Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago through whose life and death we learn to “be in the body.”
Taryn Deaton is the director of development at the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty in Washington, D.C. Taryn and her husband live in Alexandria, VA, and attend Ravensworth Baptist Church.
My three-year-old niece refers to being naked as “being in the body” (as in, “Aunt Taryn, why is he (shirtless man) in the body?”). Everyone in our family thinks this is hilarious and no one knows where she learned it. Secretly, we all hope she never learns the word “naked”!
As a Christian, the phrase “being in the body” (not necessarily my niece’s meaning) resonates with me for several reasons. First, because Jesus is Emmanuel or “God is with us.” God’s son came to Earth and lived among us in a human body. Jesus’ suffering and death involved physical and emotional pain. Through Jesus’ bodily rising, our bodies too are redeemed.
This phrase also resonates with me because God sees us “in the body.” I don’t mean that God sees us naked (which God probably can). What I mean is: God sees us for who we really are, warts and everything. We can hide nothing from God.
Additionally, “being in the body” is what we are truly called to be. We are called to be present, to be in the moment, to be alert and aware of what is happening around us. It is only when we are fully present that we can be attentive to the needs of those around us and be ready to hear God’s voice as to how we should respond.
Lastly, this phrase has meaning because we are all “in the body” of Christ. We are members of a community called to carry out God’s mission in the world, each created with unique gifts to be used for God’s purposes. We are diverse, but we are one body.
As ashes are imposed on Ash Wednesday, we are reminded to “remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Ash Wednesday causes us to confront the reality that we are “in the body” for a finite period of time and pushes us to consider what we are doing with that time.
God made us and put us on Earth for a reason: To be co-creators in bringing about God’s Kingdom. In Psalm 25 we read, “Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long.”
Like the Psalmist, we cry out to God for guidance as to how we should live. Thankfully, God responds with a baby boy, born in Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago through whose life and death we learn to “be in the body.”
Taryn Deaton is the director of development at the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty in Washington, D.C. Taryn and her husband live in Alexandria, VA, and attend Ravensworth Baptist Church.
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Ash Wednesday
Many churches have Ash Wednesday services, but the time varies during the day. So if you see people today with the mark of the cross on their foreheads, you will know that they are participating in this season of Lent.
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Lent
Time flies on the liturgical calendar. Christmas lasted for 12 days, then came epiphany. But now we are ready for the new season. With the preaching about the Transfiguration the Sunday before Ash Wednesday, we are ready to move into the season of Lent.Lent is a solemn religious observance in the liturgical calendar of many Christian denominations that begins on Ash Wednesday and covers a period of approximately six weeks (40 days) before Easter Sunday. (Note: if you are counting out the days yourself, then you do not count the Sundays.)
The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer through prayer, penance, repentance of sins, almsgiving, atonement, and self-denial. The Lenten season culminates in Holy Week as we remember the sacrifice of Jesus in his death and burial. Many people observing Lent decide to abstain from a certain food or vice, pray more often, read Lenten devotionals, or choose to add something like charitable works during Lent.
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