A Word for Wednesday: Ashes (A Series of Posts about Words)

When I was a junior in high school one of my classes was a creative writing class focused exclusively on poetry. I had no patience for poetry, I'm afraid to say. I believed that words are best when they are in the good company of many other words, strung together in sentences and contained appropriate punctuation. But after a semester (and then two more) of living in poetry, I learned to cherish words, just words, for their power and joy and unexpected meaning. So I take some time every Wednesday to think about a word with you. Glad you are here. 

Word for Today: Ashes

Definition: The word ashes is a word for the remains after a fire. The grey-white or black powder left behind after burning. The mineral residue, the "particulate matter" ejected by volcanic eruption. Ashes means ruins, the remains after cremation.

Ashes, noun. A word for the fire that consumes. We talk, talk, talk all the time about being "on fire" with the Spirit, or being "on fire" for God. And the feeling of love, devotion, chasing after God is true and good. But the purifying fire consumes and leaves traces of ashes. That attitude of envy? Ashes. The grip of pride on your heart? Ashes. When we invite the flame of God to enter and purify us, it means that we will see attitudes, ideas, feelings - reduced to ashes, to particles, to mineral residue. Everything we wanted to keep safely tucked in our pockets, those convenient excuses ("I'm only cranky because I had a bad day... I was only joking... I said that because I was tired... I forgot you because...) - if we submit ourselves to becoming ashes, those things will catch fire.

http://www.nowpublic.com/culture/dancing-flames-4

Ashes, noun. A word that forces my eyes upwards to look in the mirror honestly. How much do I choose not to see about myself that needs to change? How much do I cover in shadows? For Lent this year I am, in addition to other things, giving up makeup. That means when I look in the mirror it is only my eyes that look back, only that splash of freckles (unaided by blush or bronzer), only that hint of dimples that I say all too often I wish I didn't have. I hear ashes and I think, Ash Wednesday is the invitation to self-examination. Ash Wednesday is the beginning of seeing honestly.

(Photo Credit: Mandie Sodoma)

Ashes, noun. It means the hymn "The King of Love My Shepherd Is." I was thirteen when my paternal grandfather died. We flew to England in a whirlwind of snow, and I remember the white outside the plane and on the ground, contrasted so sharply with the black of his ashes after the cremation. I remember the service in the crematorium and the song I still can't sing without it catching in my throat. The ashes seem to fill my lung, the reminder that we return to dust. A reminder that somehow, in blinding snow flurries and too many tears, this is the story of the King of Love, the Shepherd.

Ashes, noun. A new heart is being forged. I'm moldable as the white iron in the leaping flames of the blacksmith's fire, and He wants to do beautiful work. I am being made new, this Lent and beyond, in each moment if I can hold my hands open and say yes Father, yes to the molding, yes to the Grace of Your flames, to the promise of the new heart. 

(Photo credit: Mandie Sodoma)

I read in a devotional the other day, this question. 


O My Child, have I ever failed thee? Have I ever turned My back upon thee, or forsaken thee? Have I not been thy refuge and thy strong defense?


Ashes says, "Remember, remember He who brings victory. Remember, remember that you too might catch flame with love. Remember, remember that ashes are the promise of life. 


Pray with me (from the Book of Common Prayer):


 Almighty God, you have created us out of the dust of the
 earth: Grant that these ashes may be to us a sign of our
 mortality and penitence, that we may remember that it is
 only by your gracious gift that we are given everlasting life;
 through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.


Love,
Hilary

The Smell of Rain (Multitudes on Mondays)

Yesterday I went for a run, winding my way through patches of warm and cold air, through the sludge of melting snow and muddy sidewalk, as the sky was dappled different shades of grey and white. I thought to myself, this air smells so good.

I'm thankful for the smells of things that make memories in our hearts - baking bread, English wind, just-made guacamole, clothes hot from the dryer, air before rain, roses, peonies, chlorine in your hair from swimming, ocean.

The discipline is the ache of praise:

6. Thank You for Letters to a Young Poet in my broken sounded out Italian
7. Thank You for cappuccino in Caffé di Siena
8. for the smell of rain and spring air
9. for the cup of good strong tea
10. for the time to sit at the messy kitchen table and talk about parents and children and life with Mom & Dad.

May this day, each moment, fill you with the ache to praise, the ache of praise. May peace blossom in your heart from the One who is our peace. 

Love,
Hilary

For Quiet Confidence (from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer)

O God of peace, who hast taught us that in returning and
rest we shall be saved, in quietness and confidence shall be
our strength: By the might of thy Spirit lift us, we pray thee,
to thy presence, where we may be still and know that thou
art God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Glorious Shadow (A Reflection on the Sunday of the Transfiguration)

Disclaimer: Though a student of theology, though a student of Christian thought, though at the beginning of deep learning in these fields, I am not a theologian. I am not yet wise in the ways of living faithfully. But I hope in this season of Lent, of preparation and hungry patience, of running with you to the Cross, I can offer some words to reflect on, as we lean forward to Easter.

I do not, in general, know what to do with praise songs. I find their musicality distracting - you have to be so concentrated on hitting the notes right with the guitars, and the drumbeats - and I find that the point soon becomes singing the song well, sounding like that beautiful recording of the song but not like myself.

I feel out of my depth. But this morning, for whatever reason, I found this song.

The David Crowder Band. "Shadow." In the Western liturgical calendar, this is the Sunday of the Transfiguration, where we hear of the glory of God that dazzles the air on Mount Sinai with Moses (Exodus 24), that transfigures the face of Jesus (Matthew 17). This Sunday is about the light of God's glory, how it shatters and illuminates, how it pierces, and triumphs, and reigns.

Have you ever thought about that? That, in the words of David Crowder, "Yet will He bring, dark to light, yet will He bring, day from night." The light is a promise. The light makes visible all things. From this light, the light of the glory of God, we can hide nothing.

We think shadows are safe. We crouch in them, dance in and out of them, imagine that our shadows are like invisibility cloaks. We scrunch our eyes tight shut, play the old game of "If I can't see you, then you can't see me." We clap our hands over our eyes, pretend that all is in darkness.

But the Sunday of the Transfiguration cracks that illusion, doesn't it? This is the Sunday we pray for light. Not for gentle, warm flashlight-under-your-blankets-so-you-can-read-late light. Not the humming glow of nightlights or the flicker of candlelight. We ask and plead and open ourselves to the blinding, transfiguring, transformative light. The light that glares with its whiteness. The light that bursts out and terrifies Peter and James and John. We are told to pray for this light to enter our hearts.

And this light is the light we remember as we enter the shadow of the Cross. And David Crowder sings, "We will not fear. We will remember. When darkness falls on us, we will not fear, we will remember... when all seems lost, when we're pulled and we're tossed, we'll remember the cost, we rest in the shadow of the Cross."

Our brilliant thesis/antithesis, our polemics, our philosophical dilemmas shudder under the weight of this paradox: the shadow of the Cross, the moment of darkness, is the moment of brightest light.

We rest in the light that pours from the shadow of Cross. The moment when all is dark - is the Light of the world. 


"It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, while the sun's light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." Having said this, he breathed his last." (Luke 23.44 - 46). 


This Lent, we begin with the promise of light that blazes through our darkness, but light that comes from the shadow of the Cross. The journey to the light begins now. 

Pray with me:

Last Sunday after the Epiphany

This Proper is always used on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday

O God, who before the passion of thy only-begotten Son
didst reveal his glory upon the holy mount: Grant unto us
that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may
be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his
likeness from glory to glory; through Jesus Christ
our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy
Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

(taken from the Book of Common Prayer, 1979 edition)

Love,
Hilary