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Sunday 5 March 2017

Ash

It was Ash Wednesday this week.

Now to my (many and wonderful) free church friends, Ash Wednesday may not even be on the radar as a date to remember, let alone observe with liturgies or services.

However, my faith has taken a beautifully scenic route from Methodism, through Catholic school, high and low Anglican churches at uni to the fab Family Church in Portsmouth where I'm now well and truly planted.

I have fond memories of Ash Wednesday mass at school, lining up with the rest of my form for a big smudge of last year's palm crosses on my forehead- an hour out of lessons and a good marker for the start of the Lenten season of fasting.

I have done some successful (and some less successful) lent fasts in my time. Some motivated by earthly factors (fasting chocolate, crisps and biscuits definitely was more about my waistline than about Jesus!), some with great results in my walk with God (the social media fast has always been a winner) and some that just made me ridiculously angry and difficult to be around (cheese in my final year of Uni- I'm looking at you! Sorry Jo, Anna, Dave and Alice- I now know that cheese and I are lifelong partners and should never, ever be parted).

In all seriousness though- that was about as deep as Lent got for me. I'd crack into a lent devotional- sometimes fast, sometimes not, and enjoy the changing seasons and the approach of Easter- my favourite festival in the Christian calendar.

This year, it's been different. (Understatement of the century!)

The verse I've been standing on since everything fell apart in September last year is Isaiah 61:3 
to comfort all who mourn,
    and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
    instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    a planting of the Lord
    for the display of his splendor." (Isaiah 61:2-3, emphasis mine)

Ash has been something I've thought about and prayed over a lot more in these last few months- if I'm believing for something beautiful to come out of ashes- then I need to understand and comprehend what this 'ash' is.




I read this beautiful blessing for Ash Wednesday this week, and it puts it into words better than I can:

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.




The stanza that really resonated with me this week was:
"This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning."

It is so easy to feel that there is nothing left of my old life- that everything was destroyed and went down in flames (the helplessness to act or do anything to stop a fire is part of why I feel so drawn to this concept of ash), but that is not the case. I have been left with ashes, and I know the One who spoke the universe into existence from nothing. He can and will make something beautiful from these ashes: I just need to wait and see what that something is.

With these thoughts churning in my belly, I felt really drawn to mark Ash Wednesday this year- something I haven't done since Uni. I saw that the Cathedral had a liturgy for Ash Wednesday 5.30-6.30 which fitted perfectly before a friend's birthday party just across the road at Gunwharf. So, in the name of spiritual development and taking risks, I took myself off to what turned out to be a lovely communion service including 'imposition of ashes' (sounds like they hold you down and force ashes onto your head but I promise the reality is much more genteel and british than the verb suggests!)

The vicar preached a really great message on fasting, but one part stood out to me in particular. She spoke about the purpose of a fast being to create an absence in your life which draws and recentres your attention back to God and His goodness- new, novel spaces in which He can move. She ran through the usual list of things you may want to fast, then said that anyone ill, suffering or grieving is already in an unchosen lenten season- which may have been going on for far longer than 40 days. I had never thought of my current life season as an 'unchosen lent' but the thought really resonated with me. There is a lot missing from my life at the moment- I may not have chosen to give things up but their absence is felt nonetheless.

I really feel a comfort and peace about choosing, in this Lenten time, to hold those absences, those spaces, up to God and letting them point me back to Him and His goodness. It's so tempting to fill them- to take the lack and the grief away and to stay busy busy busy- but this Lent, my plan is to rest in my lack and in my 'gaps' and to let God move in them- even when it hurts.

In other, less holy news, I highly recommend a fringe for all 'stealth ashing' you may wish to conduct! I merrily chilled with friends for the rest of the evening with a big ashy smudge on my face and noone was any the wiser!

No Ash    -       Ash