by Christine Sine
The ashes we use to anoint our foreheads on Ash Wednesday are traditionally made by burning the crosses and palms used in last year’s Palm Sunday procession. The burning of my own year old Palm Sunday fronds is a practice that I have enjoyed over the last few years as a preparation for the season of Lent. Sometimes I write a list of the change I hope for on pieces of paper and add those to the fire. It is a powerful practice that fills me with expectation for the journey ahead.
by Christine Sine
The second of my prayers for Ash Wednesday is another that I love to use each year, usually on the day following the Ash Wednesday anointing of our foreheads with ashes. I love to remind myself that it is a pilgrim walk into the wilderness with Jesus.
By Lilly Lewin–
Some times we need new eyes to see, or maybe just a new pair of glasses.
Traditionally Lent is a season of penance, repentance, and preparation for Easter.
A season of fasting, giving alms, and remembering what Jesus did leading up to his crucifixion. The 40 days are based on the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness after his baptism.
Lent was the time that new followers went through extensive preparation for baptism and reception into the church. (the whole process took a year! And during lent the rest of the community would join the new believers in remembering what Jesus did and preparing themselves, renewing their commitments.)
It’s the season in the Episcopal Church where we bury the alleluia (the actual word isn’t said in our services until Easter and then the word is resurrected. Lent is the Fast after Fat Tuesday.
I used to get in to trouble at Christ Church because I would say “celebrate lent” and be too enthusiastic about the season, rather than serious and sour.
I do believe in seasons and times of repentance. I do believe that it’s helpful to remember the last days of Jesus life, and to spend time pondering and meditating on what his death on the cross means. I don’t want to take away from the sacredness of the season, rather, I want us to find more in Lent than obligation and tradition.
Too many of us (if we traditionally observe the season) have viewed Lent as a chore, or just another thing to do or that “the SHOULD lady” says that I should do. Some of us never got what Lent was for in the first place. One of the questions that folks ask one another, at least in the Episcopal church, is “What are you giving up for Lent?” So the point seemed to be giving stuff up rather than connecting with Jesus.
Maybe you’ve given up desserts or coffee or something like this for Lent. Did this bring you closer to Jesus or did it just make you angry? Father Ed Hays says that we need to fall love with Jesus during Lent, rather than just getting angry or more hungry.
If we give up something maybe it should be selfishness, or divisiveness, or bitterness.
So what’s my point…? Maybe you didn’t even know that it was Ash Wednesday next week. Maybe you’ve never “done” lent. Whatever your background or experience, or lack of experience with the whole Lenten Season, I want to challenge and encourage each of us to see the next 40 days as an exciting opportunity. A great adventure!.. a season to anticipate rather than something to dread or gloss over.
We might need new glasses to see Lent in a new way. Here are the New Lenten Glasses: NEW Ways to view the 40 days before Easter:
1. Seeing Lent as a HONEYMOON: What if we saw the next 40 days as an opportunity to take a Honeymoon with Jesus, an opportunity to fall more in Love with Jesus between now and Easter.
What if we saw the Lenten Season as a time to fall in love with the Savior…a time to discover, or rediscover, His great love for you and me just as we are?
This could be a season to take time away from the daily rat race and actually have a date with God. Could you spend 15 minutes, an hour, a day, a weekend? How long do you need to rekindle passion? What would you do on a date with Jesus? Plan a daily or weekly date with Jesus during Lent. Check out Lenten Hobo Honeymoon and 40 Days toward Love.
2. Looking at Lent as an ADVENTURE: Create a map for the Next 40 days. Look at your calendar, or on your phone. Where do you want to go this Lenten season? Even if you’ve never observed Lent before, you can choose to be on an adventure with God each day. It is a Lenten Pilgrimage: A journey of discovery….What do you want to discover about Jesus in the coming weeks? Where does God want to take you? Who do you want to go with you? What does an adventure with God look like to you? What kind of adventures can you plan with Jesus during this Lenten season? Can you learn about the refugees in your community, serve the homeless in your area? Take a hike on a regular basis during the season and let God speak to you through what you see, hear and notice on your journey. What would kind of adventure would you design? Take time to plan it out. Include your family, roommates, small group etc.
3. Approaching Lent ARTISTICALLY.
Create something each day or every few days during Lent as a practice that connects you to Jesus. Draw, sketch, paint something each day, or create a collage that you add to each day during Lent.
Use Art or images to connect you to Jesus. Try the ones in Prayer: 40 Days of Practice
or go to a gallery or art museum or travel to one on line.
Use Photography…take a photo a day and post it on social media or just use it to pray with or journal from it.
Rethinkchurch is hosting a photo a day for Lent you can find prompts here and check them out on instagram:
4. Creating a Garden and//or an Altar Space with things that help you remember and connect with God. What images or items would you include on your altar space? You might have photos of people to pray for or a map of the world or small globe to remind you to pray for the world. What plants would you plant? Check out the many succulent prayer gardens that Christine has created.
Create your own garden, plant some bulbs or seeds inside and watch them grow. Start a garden outside if that’s possible in your area. Allow the process of preparing the soil to be a prayer practice during the season of Lent. What does God want to grow in you this Lenten Season? What does God need to prune? What weeds need to go? What new plants need to grow?
5. SEEING LENT AS A SEASON OF SUBTRACTING THINGS. Do less rather than doing More! Maybe the activities and actions listed above make you crazy! Maybe your heart and mind cannot bear one more thing. Maybe this Lenten season you need to subtract things rather than adding things to your life. Maybe you need to turn off the phone, the TV, the computer and just be quiet. Maybe you need to take naps as a spiritual practice. Or take walks, or long bubble baths or showers where you can clear your mind and enjoy the silence. Allow Jesus to love you in the quiet. Allow Jesus to love you and give you peace and an empty calendar for Lent.
For more ways to connect with Lent and for practices to try for Shrove Tuesday next week check out my freerangeFriday post from last year. Beginning Lent with Butter and Syrup
I’d love to hear where Lent takes you this year! Also, if you do choose to give up something this Lent, remember that
Sunday’s are really feast days, so technically you can have whatever you gave up on Sunday’s during the Lenten season.
by Christine Sine
Over the last few years I have written a number of prayers for Ash Wednesday. I have been reading through some of these today and thought that you might like to use one of them for Ash Wednesday next week so plan to repost these over the next few days. Today’s prayer was written back in 2014 but is one that I return to each year as I prepare myself for Lent.
by Christine Sine
Lent is less than a week away and we invite you to join us on a journey of creativity and transformation this year. Think a little outside the box as you get ready for Easter. It’s time to prepare, not for the cross but the kingdom, not for death but for life. It’s time to get ready to be God’s resurrection people of love and compassion in our needy world.
To do that we need to break down the walls that separate us from clearly seeing the image of God within us and within others. We need to break down the walls that prevent us from loving God with our whole heart and our neighbors as ourselves. We need to break down the walls that prevent us from being the effect stewards of God creation that we are called to be. Lent is a good time to do some of that work.
What If We Gave Up Walls For Lent?
Last year, I initiated a Facebook discussion that much to my horror became a rather vicious argument about the wall between the U.S and Mexico. By the end of the discussion, I think that we had all added new layers to the walls that divided us and made rational thought and discussion almost impossible.
As I reflected on this, I was reminded of another wall – the Berlin wall that once separated people from each other. I was actually in Germany when the wall came down and still have this piece that was taken from it by a German friend, who together with others had prayed for years for the breaking down of the wall. I pulled out my piece of the wall and have added it to my Lenten Garden as a reminder that God is faithfully in the business of breaking down walls through love.
Breaking Down Walls Means Listening Carefully and Respectfully.
Walls are so often designed to keep out those we see as a threat, without really understanding who those people are. To listen carefully and respectfully, we must be secure enough in who we are to not be threatened by another person’s opinion. What are the fears that make us feel walls are necessary, not just on the border, but in other parts of our lives too? Listening does not mean we agree with each other, but hopefully it does mean that we can accept and love each other in the midst of our disagreements.
What if we decided to break down these walls for Lent and truly listened to each other? Here are some suggestions on how to do this.
1. Let’s preach a theology of inclusion. So often we create walls between us and those who look or practice faith differently than we do because we focus on difference rather than similarity. We are all created in the image of Christ and Paul reminds us in Galatians 3:28 that, “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.” What does that look like in our world today? How could we use Lent to break down walls that exclude other ethnicities, other denominations and other sexual orientations?
Why not visit a church of a different denomination during Lent – an African American church, a Catholic Church an Orthodox Church, a LBGTQ affirming church or a very conservative church. If there is a church with mainly refugees in your area, it would be good to include that as well. You might even like to add a mosque and a Jewish synagogue to the mix. Invite your friends to join you. Have a discussion afterwards asking: What did you learn about God? And what did you learn about faith?
2. Encourage practices that help you get to know your neighbors. Random acts of kindness in the neighborhood are great ways to break down walls that isolate us from those around us. My friends, Trevor and Hilary of Kardia church in Seattle, researched their neighborhood to find out who had moved in over the last few months. They visited each of the new people and gave them a small gift to welcome them. For many, it was the first form of welcome into their new environment they had experienced. More recently, during our heavy snow, they went around the neighborhood shoveling sidewalks and driveways for those who were unable to do it themselves.
3. Be open to change. When we interact with people who are very different from us, we need to be willing to learn and be receptive to the change God may demand of us. I am still impacted by the words of African American preacher Leroy Barber who once told me, “white people want us to show up but they don’t want us to change how we do things.” We need to encourage flexibility and a willingness to both see things differently and do things differently.
4. Share in the pain of the excluded. When we listen to the stories of other people’s pain, we have the possibilities of strengthening the walls that divide us by turning away from or ignoring the suffering that overwhelm us. Alternatively, we can take the pain we hear expressed into ourselves in the same way that Jesus took on the pain and suffering of the world. Then, we must allow God to comfort us in the midst of that pain and share that comfort and compassion with others. Teaching our congregations to listen to the pain of others and respond in compassionate and caring ways could be one of the most powerful things we could teach during Lent. Listen, pray, respond is a great mantra to teach our members to use during Lent.
Lent is meant to be a season that prepares us to live more effectively as followers of Christ. And that is all about breaking down walls that exclude and isolate us. What will you do to break down the walls within yourself and your congregation during this season?
Prayer the church’s banquet, angel’s age,
God’s breath in man returning to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth
Engine against th’ Almighty, sinner’s tow’r,
Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
The six-days world transposing in an hour,
A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;
Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,
Exalted manna, gladness of the best,
Heaven in ordinary, man well drest,
The milky way, the bird of Paradise,
Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul’s blood,
The land of spices; something understood.
I rediscovered George Herbert’s sonnet ‘Prayer (I)’(above) a couple of years ago thanks to Malcolm Guite’s excellent book The Word in the Wilderness: A Poem A Day for Lent and Easter. My Father brought me up reading Herbert, and John Donne, another seventeenth century ‘metaphysical’ priest-poet (and Herbert’s Godfather), and several of his turns of phrase became embedded in me. Perhaps the most accessible of these when I was a child was the opening line of another poem, ’Love bade me Welcome’, but over the past few years, as I have begun to write more extensively about spirituality and creativity and the challenges of living with chronic illness and depression, Herbert’s image of ‘heaven in ordinarie’ has been of recurring, resounding significance.
Perhaps rather unusually, the Anglican Church choose to single out George Herbert as a priest-poet by creating a day of remembrance and celebration of the continuing influence of his devotional lyrics (today, February 27th). As one seventeenth-century commentator noted of Herbert’s poetry, “Herbert speaks to God like one that really believeth in God, and whose business in the world is most with God. Heart-work and heaven-work make up his books”. Unknown to a large audience in his lifetime, from the eighteenth century onwards Herbert’s work became increasingly known and popular. His work has been deeply and broadly influential on a significant number of British poets and composers, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and T.S.Eliot among them; and the Wesleys made hymns from his poems, such as ‘Teach me, my God and King’ and ‘Let all the world in every corner sing’.
George Herbert was born on 3 April 1593 at Black Hall in Montgomery, Wales. His family on his father’s side was one of the oldest and most powerful in Montgomeryshire, though his father, an active local sheriff and member of Parliament, died when Herbert was three and a half years old. His mother, Magdalen, seems to have been an extraordinary woman, fully capable of managing the complex financial affairs of the family, moving the household when necessary, and supervising the academic and spiritual education of her ten children. Herbert credits her with teaching him to write poetry.
He went to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1609, studied for a B.A. then an M.A.; he obtained a Minor fellowship then a Major fellowship, which involved increasing responsibilities as a tutor and lecturer; and was made University Orator in 1620, a position of great prestige within the university, and which was often a stepping-stone to a successful career at Court. The Orator was the spokesperson for the university on a variety of occasions, making speeches and writing letters. As Orator, he attracted the attention of King James I. He made friends with ambitious and powerful men at Court such as the Lord Chancellor Francis Bacon and Bishop John Williams, who became Herbert’s patron and benefactor. He was elected to Parliament twice, but when James I died in 1625, Herbert became seriously interested in being ordained as a Church of England priest. He delayed entering the priesthood due to several years of poverty and illness, and his poetry from this period fully reflects the serious spiritual and bodily struggles he suffered. “I alwaies fear’d sickness more then death,” he wrote to his mother, “because sickness has made me unable to perform those Offices for which I came into the world.”
Herbert was finally ordained in 1630 and settled in the small parish of Bemerton, near Salisbury, Wiltshire. At Bemerton Herbert found somewhere to fulfil his lifelong search for “some place, where I might sing, / And serve thee,” and to finish his final collection of poetry, The Temple. Herbert described this collection as containing “a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have past betwixt God and my Soul, before I could subject mine to the will of Jesus, my Master: in whose service I have now found perfect freedom.” Herbert’s poetic speaker is never as a distant observer but one who is thoroughly, personally, passionately, eternally, involved in his spiritual struggles. Even when he was first at Cambridge he could write a poem where the speaker cries out “I, joyous, and my mouth wide open, / Am driven to the drenched cross”.
Shortly before his death, at the early age of forty, Herbert sent the manuscript of The Temple to Nicholas Ferrar, the founder of a semi-monastic Anglican religious community at Little Gidding, Lincolnshire, reportedly telling him to publish the poems if he thought they might “turn to the advantage of any dejected poor soul”, otherwise to burn them.
Fortunately for us, they were not burnt. In a letter accompanying two sonnets sent to his mother as a New Year’s gift in 1610, Herbert made a vow “that my poor Abilities in Poetry, shall be all, and ever consecrated to Gods glory.” As I celebrate this poet today in the words of one of the Anglican collects of the day, I wonder: dare I adapt and repeat the words of Herbert’s vow for myself, here and now?
Our God and King, who called your servant George Herbert from The pursuit of worldly honors to be a pastor of souls, a poet, and a priest in your temple: Give us grace, we pray, joyfully to perform the tasks you give us to do, knowing that nothing is menial or common that is done for your sake; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen
by Christine Sine.
Next week is the beginning of Lent for Western churches, and though most of us have heard of Ash Wednesday, many of us are a little confused about the days that precede it. However with the urge to declutter and organize spreading around the planet I thought that this was a good time to think about adding Clean Monday to our celebrations.
For Eastern Orthodox Christians, Clean Monday, the Monday before Ash Wednesday, is the first day of Great Lent. It is a reminder that we should begin Lent with good intentions and a desire to clean our spiritual house. It is a day of strict fasting for Eastern Catholics and orthodox, including abstinence not only from meat but from eggs and dairy products as well. Because of the different calendar used by Orthodox churches this will be March 11 this year (2019). For us Protestants however it might be a good day to set aside for some house cleaning and decluttering.
Shrove Tuesday is the day before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent in the Western Church. “Shrove” is the past tense of the word “shrive,” which means to hear a confession, assign penance, and absolve from sin. Shrove Tuesday is a reminder that we are entering a season of penance.
Shrove Tuesday is also known as Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras (which is simply French for Fat Tuesday). In Italy, Fat Tuesday is known as carnevale-goodbye to meat-from which we get our English word carnival. Traditionally people held one last rich feast, using up perishables like eggs, butter and milk before the fast of Lent began. Now in some places, like New Orleans, this has become a huge celebration that really has nothing to do with the beginning of Lent. Our church, St Andrews Episcopal in Seattle always holds a wonderful Mardi Gras celebration that is also a fundraiser for the youth team’s summer outreach.
For many however this is still a significant day. Churches often hold pancake suppers, sometimes as a way to reach out to their neigbours. You can find a great collection of recipes and traditions from around the world for Shrove Tuesday in Fat Tuesday Recipes.
The following prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian is a common prayer used during this season.
O Lord and Master of my life, keep from me the spirit of indifference and discouragement, lust of power and idle chatter. [kneel/prostration]
Instead, grant to me, Your servant, the spirit of wholeness of being, humble-mindedness, patience, and love. [kneel/prostration]
O Lord and King, grant me the grace to be aware of my sins and not to judge my brother; for You are blessed now and ever and forever. Amen. [kneel/prostration]
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