This Ash Wednesday, consider all that God can do with dust

Image by Kyle Ellefson

On this Ash Wednesday, this remarkable blessing from Jan Richardson.  About it, she says: 

"Ashes, dust, dirt: the stuff we walk upon, that we sweep away, that we work to get rid of, now comes to remind us who we are, where we are from, where we are bound.

"How terrible. And how marvelous, that God should feel so tender toward the dust as to create us from it, and return us to it, breathing through us all the while. Even after releasing us from the blessed dust at the last, God continues to breathe us toward whatever it is we are becoming.

"Ash Wednesday hits close to home once again. My husband’s ashes remain in the keeping of my brother, waiting in a beautiful wooden box that Scott has built for them. This spring we will bury the ashes on the family farm where Gary and I were married not so long ago. And we will breathe, and we will bless the earth from which we have come, and we will give thanks for the astonishing gift that passed too briefly among us but whose love, tenacious as ever, goes with us still."

Read it and embrace your earthen self.

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.

–Jan Richardson

Christmas on the Valley Floor: The Poetic Vision of John Muir

Image by www.yosemitehikes.com

A poem I've rendered from the lyrical prose of St John (Muir) of the Sierra.  Muir never wrote poetry (to my knowledge), but I find his writings, especially his journals to be stunningly lyrical, and so, this little project to turn some of them into poems.

This one I call Christmas on the Valley Floor.  The angels visited the shepherds on the first Christmas Eve; let us not envy them.  The heavenly messengers are always near us if we have eyes to see and ears to hear their message.   

Christmas on the Valley Floor

 

Christmas brings a cordial, gentle, soothing snowstorm—

a thing of plain, palpable, innocent beauty 

that the frailest child would love.

The myriad diamonds of the sky 

come gracefully in great congregational flakes,

not falling or floating,

but just coming to their appointed places 

upon rock or leaf 

in a loving, living way of their own—

snow-gems, flowers of the mountain clouds 

in whose folds and fields all rivers take their rise.

The floral stars of the fields above 

are planted upon the fields below.

The pines, the naked oaks, the bushes, 

the mosses too 

and crumpled ferns 

are all in equal bloom, 

and belong to the same one great icy order.

Now the last sky blossom has fallen,

the clouds depart in separate companies, 

leaving the valley open to other influences and communions. 

Every tree seems to be possessed 

with a new kind of life—

in sounds and gestures 

they are new creatures, 

born again.

The whole valley, sparkling in the late sunlight, 

looks like a trim, polished, perfect existence.

The dome Tissiack,* 

looks down the valley like the most living being 

of all the rocks and mountains; 

one would fancy that there were brains in that lofty brow.

How grandly comes the gloaming over this pearly beauty!

What praise songs pour from the white chambers of the falls!

Surely the Lord loves this new creation, 

and His angels are now looking down 

at this new thing that His hands have wrought.

Muir’s journal, December 25, 1869, John of the Mountains: Unpublished Journals, p. 39-40.

*Tissiack is the name given to the image of a young woman that can be seen on the face of Half Dome. Indigenous legends tell of an Indian maiden turned to stone by the wrath of the gods; some say her tears are still visible on the north face of the monolith. 

Self-Care as Soul-Care: a Core Spiritual Practice

image by chris neufeld-erdman, Woodend Farm, high on the Birker Fell, Lake District UK

On November 19, Davis Community Church journeyed thematically from the first key spiritual practice, Sabbath, into the core practice of Self-Care. 

Sabbath, we learned in week one is not so much about rest, nor it is a legalistic loyalty to a dry and duty-bound discipline.  Rather, it’s about a way of life that’s woven with wonder and awe; it’s about living in time differently, weaving a tapestry of time that is life-giving, that unites us with the rhythms of nature, and that is health-giving to ourselves, and naturally, then, to others and to the Earth itself.

In week two, Chris Stone told the raw, brave, and vulnerable story of his journey through pain and brokenness and into a deeper sense of his own identity, dignity, and purpose.  I also told the story of Audrey Lippman, one of our congregational treasures, who recently told a group of young adults that her advice to her 30-year old self (from the vantage point of her 94 years of living!) would be to “find out who you are and live that . . . and to live in community” so that you can sustain that sense of your sacred Self.  

And so, the practice of Self-Care is not primarily about tending the body (though habits that do that are essential to this practice); it’s about Soul-Care, finding your way into your inner life, and there to discover meaning, purpose, and dignity for living.

I ending the sermon will the stunning, lyrical inspiration of Mary Oliver’s “The Journey.”  Listen to Chris Stone’s story, Audrey Lippman’s wisdom, and my sermon here.

On the New Sabbath: Weaving a Life of Wonder

Image by Chris Neufeld-Erdman, Wastwater, with a view toward Scafell Pike, Lake District, UK

On November 12, Davis Community Church began a three week series last week called, "The Three Practics: Sabbath and Self-Care and Service". Here's is a link to my sermon on Sabbath. 

And here's a tidy summary: 

Sabbath is not so much about rest but about a way of life that is woven with wonder and awe. By practicing some kind of sabbath regularly we find our bodies and souls opened to a sense of the Eternal--the "intimations of immortality" that come to us through wonder. Sabbath is about creating space-in-time . . . about living in time differently, weaving a tapestry of time that is life-giving, that unites us with the rhythms of nature, and that is health-giving to ourselves and naturally, then, to others and to the Earth itself.

Abraham Joshua Heschel's remarkable and thin little book, Sabbath, takes pride of place in reflections on the practice of Sabbath.  Find it here.