“Most loving God [sic], whose will it is to give thanks for all
things, to fear nothing but the loss of you, and to cast all our
care on you who care for us: Preserve us from faithless fear
and worldly anxieties, that no clouds of this mortal life may
hide from us the light of that love which is immortal, and, which
you have manifested to us in your Son Jesus Christ our Lord;
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever.” AMEN.
We rarely get to pray together this Collect for the Eighth Sunday after Epiphany (BCP, p. 216), because Easter is a moveable feast and we seldom get eight Epiphany Sundays. Somehow this prayer feels to me like standing shivering at the end of the high diving board looking down, feeling small and anxious at eleven. Do I have the nerve to jump? How cold will the water be? Can I do this or not? Then I inhale deeply, grab my small nose, and jump wildly into the air. The water does catch me. I do surface triumphant. Now all I have to do is refrain from boasting.
This Collect takes my soul on a dive toward humility—being right-sized, not too big and not too small. It is a difficult spiritual balance to strike. This prayer helps me prepare for a season of reflection, and retreat, and deep personal honesty—diving into myself, praying that the smudge of ashes I just received has mysteriously prepared me.
ASH WEDNESDAY, 2021
I think ashes are powerful symbols through which the Church alerts us to our mortality, how profoundly vulnerable and fragile our sweet lives are—and how valuable.
The ritual reminds me of the nursery rhyme: “Ring-a-round-a Rosie.” We children joined hands in a circle, then skipped around singing as if we all had a pocket of posies. Then we sang: “Ashes, Ashes we all fall down.” We’d collapse to the ground on our bums, laughing with glee before we hopped up to repeat our dance.
Of course we had no idea about the grim implications of this rhyme, understood by some to refer to the rosy rash one got during the 1665 Black Plague in London, herbal posies carried to ward off the smell of the disease. We kindergarteners just loved it for fun and games. Faster. Faster. We whirled around. Falling down was the best part. We didn’t give death a thought. BUT……. once one of the girls circling fell down and did not, could not, despite urging, get up. (As I recall she had a heart event, needed immediate treatment, and returned to school in time.)
What I remember most, about this trauma was how instantly and firmly, our collective terror gripped us. This ashes event lives on vividly in my mind, even as I dip my thumb into a bowl of blessed ashes and press it firmly onto the forehead of an upturned recipient, saying “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” I don’t feel negative. I do feel solemn. How desperately I want to add something Easterish, but I don’t. I just do not. Silence matters. Solemnity matters.
Then I just jump into Lent. After all, the Bible has said that it’s time to change my heart and turn about and wonder what in hell I am doing now, and what I have done in my little life, and whether I need to notice something new, or repent of something bad.
I can’t think of a single thing, so I think I’ll just follow my gut that tells me to strip down and streak the halls of the retirement residence where I live. I resist that temptation, mostly because of vanity. My aging body is a thing not to behold. Still, the thought itself has lifted my mood.
Mark's Gospel tells us that Jesus, properly awakened, heads not to church, not safely home, not for the road to proclaim and preach, but into the wilderness where he will figure out his own jumping in— his own right-sizedness—as the dry desert winds buffet and buffer his body and soul.
Will he be a Messiah? Or will he simply be Beloved?
Mark’s gospel account is honest and brusk:
All we know is that Jesus’s adult baptism jolted him with his spiritual identity and calling, that he was sorely tempted, and that his discernment took a very long time—forty days a metaphor suggesting some time.
All we know is that Jesus faithfully used his one mind, and his one heart to make his one plan: I will tell people about the God I know best, the God I believe in and who I believe believes in me.
This same God believes in all living things—including you and me, and the black squirrel who just sprinted and skimmed across the snow-laden chain link fence, pleased I bet with his or her athleticism.
No comments:
Post a Comment