February 10, 2016 - Ash Wednesday

This is not the first year that Creator did not observe a traditional Fat Tuesday / Mardi Gras celebration,  I found, however, on Tuesday it was more in my heart and mind than in the past. Obviously this was not a dust to dust moment but certainly this memory was another reminder of life's impermanence and was part of my reflections during today's Ash Wednesday worship.

I thought about Creator traditions that will likely change for Lent, Holy Week and beyond. Pastor Dayle's retirement is not the only reason.  For many years David Lee and friends carried on a tradition that brought a New Orleans-like jazz feel and a carnival-like brightness to the Creator festivities on Shrove Tuesday.

Each year high expectations were met by these concerts.  At the same time, there was no exploration of anything new that Creator might want to plan for Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday celebrations.  We would have food and conversation, and Mardi Gras trinkets as centerpieces on the table.  Some of.us would celebrate with chocolate, compete in a trivia challenge about Lent and Easter before worship.  The question of how the date Easter is determined would always show up in the trivia challenge.      .

The tension in play, at least within me, was described in Bishop Mark Hanson's 2002 book, Faithful Yet Changing.  Churchgoers are among those who are enveloped and assured by the familiar patterns followed during the church year, but sometimes there is also a longing for something new and unique.   This is coupled with the fact that change is bound to be needed. Then an effort to change tradition will be made. This, in turn, causes uncertainty and the community needs to reach a new consensus with the change.

I trust Creator to demonstrate resilience, clarity and strength as new and familiar approaches to traditions, ministry and worship are evaluated and decisions are made.

At the service we sang Kelly Carlisle's Kyrie and Quiet Our Souls,  Someone even thought Kelly was physically present as Matt opened the service with an instrumental Quiet Our Souls.  "My eyes must be going bad." she laughed.  For me it was another reminder of the presence of those who were important to us in the past. They were also here tonight.

Pastor Michelle's message tonight focused on how to respect and support the diverse Christian practices we engage in to follow God.  She emphasized we are practicing Christians and that practicing is a lifelong vocation.

For some there are the contemplative practices of prayer, reading scripture, meditation and worship.  For others it is in the action of feeding and caring for others and engaging in making the world a better place.  There are others, like St. Francis who follow both active and contemplative practices.  Pastor Michelle offered this as a way for us to choose and stick with a Lenten discipline.

This dovetailed with stories that were shared with me before the service.  There were members who supported each other in choices and decisions they made in consideration for one another.  These stories filled my heart.  Demonstrated community was a part of the night's inspiration.  This is richly different from my February 21, 2007 experience which revolved around a quite personal perspective and focus.   

I was mindful of the community gathered during the Imposition of Ashes. It was a shared experience.  Each person who came up in turn felt dear to the community and to me personally.  Many others who now share or shared Creator's pilgrim journey (yes, the service closed with I Want Jesus to Walk with Me) in the past came to mind as well.    

I long to communicate to you what happened in other contemplative moments of the service as well and, oddly, a painting I recently was made aware of did just that.

To the left is an image of the painting Ash Wednesday completed in 1860 by the German artist Carl Spitzweg. The work combines Shrove Tuesday and an Ash Wednesday Lenten imagery..Spitzweg's canvas shows a solitary harlequin, still decked out in his colorful and jolly costume and pointed hat, although the festivities of the day before are over.

Look closely.  This figure of revelry and excess, with arms folded and head down, is sitting in what appears to be prison. A shaft of light comes through the cell's window, illuminating a lonely figure who is deep in thought. His only sustenance is a jug of water. Every element in the painting forcefully outlines and underscores what a traditional Lent involves: self-reflection about and repentance of the "sins" of excess; fasting and self-denial; (re)encountering God.  

I appreciate the juxtaposition of the amusement imagery of Shrove Tuesday with the austerity of Ash Wednesday and Lent imagery.  This is a pictorial representation of  the gospel good news as I have been encountering it this year.

I found this feeling contained in the gospel referenced in music earlier and described that feeling in the January 31 post about The Flesh Failures (Let the Sunshine In) song in Hair!  When the good news is heard how do we incorporate it into our lives?  There is a Bible verse that addresses this incorporation to quote here.  1 Corinthians 4:10  We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honorable, but we are despised.

Another song this painting associates with in my mind (and the painting has associations with Lent as well) is Bruce Springsteen's Point Blank particularly with a set of lyrics not on The River album but in Springsteen's 1978 live performances of the song:

And so you stumble out into the morning searching for your usual fix

But girl them old distractions, man, they just don't give the kicks they used to

So you go home and pack your pistol, you go out looking for someone

But girl can't you see they got you caught in the middle, you don't know where to aim your gun

These lyrics identify something else to consider giving up for Lent and why.  Not simply giving up some desired delight to demonstrate individual willpower but perhaps giving up "the usual fixes that are now distractions that just don't give the kicks they used to". I am considering giving up a usual fix that I no longer delight in for Lent this year. 

There is that phrase we hear on Ash Wednesday when it is not connected to the death of an individual .  What response should ashes to ashes, dust to dust from the Book of Common Prayer evoke?

Perhaps the anxiety that comes from cogitating death.

Perhaps the peace that comes from acceptance of what comes from that cogitation..

Perhaps it is wise to remember the story of a great king who asked his advisers to give him a phrase that would make him happy when sad and sad when happy.  They deliberated, then returned with the words. “This too shall pass.”.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust has the same multiple-edge to it, reminding us that, together with the comfort these words bring in times of trouble, there is the challenge that all that is good in our lives will also end. All these words echo down as our reminder that this life is temporary and that these moments, whether good or bad, are not eternal.

Perhaps even labeling the impermanence is imperfect and thinking that dust should be more about an understanding that reaches for the eternal as Joni Mitchell intimated in her song Woodstock:

We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

The lyric has been inspirational to me for a long time, with stardust being the key noun that captured my heart.  Tonight it was the collective "we" in that line that captured what was moving and heartfelt.