Remembering Ash Wednesday

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Growing up Lutheran, I have many memories of attending Ash Wednesday services. Truthfully, I didn't much care for them growing up. I'm not really sure that I actually knew what I was celebrating, except that I had some remote knowledge that I was somehow getting ready for Easter. My least favorite part of the night was leaving with a chalky, black cross temporarily tattooed onto my forehead. {Okay, it wasn't tattooed; it was only rubbed. It just felt tattooed.} But I remember exiting the church service with the dusty sign on my skin and feeling more than self conscious for several minutes until we returned home to welcome soap and water.

I've been thinking more lately about what it means to have grown up in a liturgical church. Some parts I don't miss and others I really do. The other day I was having a conversation with another Christian about Ash Wednesday. She asked me what it meant. I answered, "I'm not sure that I really know after all those years of growing up Lutheran. All I really remember is my pastor putting the sign of the cross on my forehead and repeating, 'From dust you came, and to dust you shall return.' "

It was a beautiful memory {aside from the odd feeling of walking around with a cross on my head}. But I needed to remember more. I needed to remember why. When I came home that day, I gave myself a little refresher course on the liturgical church calendar and why exactly Christians all around the world celebrate Ash Wednesday.

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent. I {re}learned that just as Jesus spent 40 days in the desert preparing for ministry, the 40-day season of Lent mirrors this time as we celebrate with fasting and prayer {and a certain bit of temptation, too, as we also identify with Jesus and his sufferings.} The ashes placed on the forehead are in fact a sign of mourning and repentance to God. These are often the burnt palms from last year's Palm Sunday celebrations.

Lent, then, is the season where we focus on the life, ministry and death of Jesus, leading up to the glorious celebration of the Resurrection, which is the ultimate hope of every Christian believer. Certainly this is what all Christians should focus on each and every day, but this season provides the special opportunity to set apart several weeks to uniquely identify with Jesus by denying ourselves, taking up our cross, and following Him. I love that you don't have to be Lutheran or Catholic or Anglican to celebrate Lent. All Christian believers are called to deny themselves and follow Jesus daily. The season of Lent just happens to get us back to that mission.

These next forty days before Easter, I'm considering what that might look like in my life. I'm getting new ideas on how to celebrate Lent by reading through the life of Christ. I love the idea of counting down the Sundays in Lent leading up to Easter with candles, much like we do during Advent before Christmas. Ann Voskamp also shares a practical idea this week of celebrating Ash Wednesday with your children. I think we may try it today.

How will you celebrate Ash Wednesday and Lent this year?

Learning to Live What I Believe

Here's what I'm doing this weekend...
1. Dwelling on my theme of "rest" this year.
2. Considering how life in Jesus is, in Ed Welch's words, "restless rest, with the accent on rest."
3. Learning to shed the "try hard" life one day at a time.

Listen in to more of what Welch has to say. Better yet, read his whole post here. And join me in actively pursuing rest.

He writes,

"I must try harder."

While so many other functional beliefs immediately sound heterodox, this one sounds biblical. Who among us isn’t trying harder to love our neighbor, love God, eat better, go greener, and exercise more? And aren’t we supposed to work out our salvation and live like athletes who want to win a race?

Yet, “I must try harder,” as I have heard it used, is always doomed to fail, as it should. It can mean: “I have tried harder and it didn’t help, and maybe I should keep trying harder, but why bother?” It can mean: “I have tried harder, and it didn’t help, but I will keep trying harder because I don’t know what else to do.” Or it can mean: “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I messed up. I’ll try harder. Okay? (Now stop bothering me.)”

“I must try harder” comes from the set of beliefs in which Jesus, at most, is our [distant] coach, giving direction, encouragement, and a good tongue lashing from the side-lines while we try to compete, without much assistance, against someone clearly more skilled than ourselves. Victory is never really possible. We just hope to avoid an embarrassingly lopsided loss.

Life in Jesus, however, is restless rest, with the accent on rest. Faith, which is the primary human response to God, means that we trust him and not ourselves. More specifically, faith means, “Jesus, help!” And this is very different from a foundational belief, “I must try harder.”

I want to try harder too, but in the right way. We need to be activists in our rest. We actively ask God to show us the way, to do what he is calling us to do, in the Spirit’s power. But the belief I hear most often is the resigned, self-reliant version of “I must try harder.”

Now is always a good time to assign ourselves a new task, such as to rest in, abide in, believe in, trust in, know and enjoy the rescuer of our souls."

-Ed Welch, excerpt from post titled, "What Christians Believe: 'I Must Try Harder' "

And once again, I can say what I believe, but if I don't live what I believe, than it really doesn't matter at all that much now, does it?

A Poem

Remembering, "It is finished,"
Every day, every hour, every moment,
Surrendering to His better story, quiet
Trust.

The Year of Rest

She said it best who quietly commented, "I can't even begin to prepare for 2012...I'm still processing 2011."

And my head nods, and my heart knows, and I wonder, too, how I will ever prepare.

Here January bids goodbye, and I'm still pondering.

Deep down, I know, though. If I've learned anything this past year, I'm slowly accepting the truth that I can really only do one thing well. Or shall I say, attempt to do one thing well. I'm learning about the power of one. One task. One pursuit. One goal.

One word? Others have done it. I'm learning from them, too

She had a word. First she choose "Eucharisteo." {and she wrote a book}. Then she lived "Communion." The following year, "Yes." Next, "Here." This is her Year of Koinonia.

I'll sit and listen, too. What's my word?

Strangely enough, the New Year calmly commenced with a day of rest. Can we begin all new endeavors with a day of Sabbath rest? And isn't that really what we all really need? Or isn't that what I, at least, need most? To rest from trying, rest from laboring, rest from wondering and worrying and wishing and working? To rest in the here, the now, the good, the right, the moment, and the mystery? To remember that, "It is finished."

Rest. Yes, rest.

That's my word.

That's how I'll live 2012.

2012. The Year of Rest.

Returning to Eucharisteo

I walk by it every Monday.

Rushing, readying, racing, racing, racing.

Remembering, oh, yes. I do need to rest and relax and recline with Him, too.

Return to living out eucharisteo.

How desperately I, too, hunger for the meal that reminds me that all is from God, all is good, and all is for His glory.

I need this giving of thanks.

Especially on Mondays.

#214. a homeschool community for my two kiddos
#215. my boy's smile of success
#216. a patient piano teacher
#217. a phone call from a friend
#218. a smile in my husband's voice
#219. reading books at bedtime
#220. the surprising blessing of a martial arts class
#221. dogs...maybe I do like them?!?
#222. learning Latin to catchy tunes
#223. Dairy Queen for supper
#224. watching God work
#225. learning to be the body of Christ
#226. listening to His voice
#227. new friends
#228. embracing life
#229. making it through a mad Monday

A Poem

“Give me the Love that leads the way

The Faith that nothing can dismay

The Hope no disappointments tire

The Passion that’ll burn like fire

Let me not sink to be a clod

Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God”

— Amy Carmichael

When A Picture Is Worth More Than a Thousand Words

When I'm old, I want to be like Grandma Moses.

She didn't give up. She didn't slow down. While lives around her were ending, hers was just beginning. She painted. And she didn't start until she was nearly 80 years old. 8-0 years old.

She remembered the seasons of life, lingering over the details. Yet, Grandma Moses loved simplicity. She loved farms, the holidays, people, and snow.

Maple Bush

She valued home, community and family.

Quilting Bee

She lived the truth that “It is never too late to become what you might have been.” (George Eliot)

There's a lot I don't know about Grandma Moses. But this I do know: being an image bearer of God, she reflected her Creator. And reflecting her Creator, she created. Beautiful masterpieces.

Grandma Moses is a picture of what it looks like to age well. She made this world a little more beautiful for 101 years. And her pictures are worth more than a thousand words and a thousand lessons for living life to the fullest. What a lady!

Beautiful World