Wednesday, March 2, 2022                                       (today’s lectionary)
Ash Wednesday
After the silence comes the song
Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning. Rend your hearts, and return to the Lord, your God.
In mid-January, Renée Antrosio posted this poem. Renée is pastor of New Covenant Fellowship in Champaign, and Gale Walden is a parishioner. Gale teaches writing at UIUC and publishes poetry.
Back in January Lent was six weeks away, and Renée recognized that. But she was growing impatient. “May we savor a little sunshine on this winter day, and may her words touch you in this holy, strange, and far-from-ordinary time.”
Ash Wednesday by Gale Walden
We are leaving Ordinary Time
time of the winter cardinals, of the wet leaves
under snow—time of could you turn
your head a little bit more toward me
during class picture day.
That cross-eyed girl in fourth grade
has stared back at you for decades.
You hope she didn’t know you
were mean to her behind her back,
that you sometimes crossed your eyes
in fun after she passed you in the hallway,
even though your mother swore
your face could get stuck that way.
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Your mother told you many things that weren’t true:
cottage cheese and jelly makes a fine dinner,
you always need to wear a slip,
you will succeed at something—we all do—
and some that were: lipstick is essential;
leave a trace everywhere you go,
people will know you’ve been there.
Your father is a good man.
I will always love you.
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Your mother stays inside you, even though
she lives in the somewhere else now,
someplace where she is a little more like God,
which she would love.
Maybe she lives in the sky
or on a street paved with jewels,
or maybe just still in the ground,
beneath the patchwork blanket her own
mother quilted, waiting
for him and you and the others
who are still walking in and out
of ordinary time toward dust,
smudging ourselves
with ashes, proclaiming
the end and the beginning
of the palms waving in triumph.
The poet too is impatient. Let’s get on with it. Let the palms wave in triumph.
For gracious and merciful is our Lord, slow to anger and rich in kindness.
And who knows?
Perhaps he will again relent and leave behind a blessing. So let us blow the trumpet!
At the Transforming Center we spend each evening in silence, what in monasteries is called the Great Silence. In the early morning, when the 100 or so of us gather together again, the sun having risen, we quote the psalm of David and look toward each other, all of us alive now after the darkness of the night, after the Great Silence. We say to ourselves and each other:
O Lord, open my lips and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.
 During Lent I am drawn to books about the desert. Today I am beginning The Desert: An Anthology for Lent compiled by John Moses. Later this month I hope to be driving through the plains and desert of Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico, exploring at least a portion of Old Route 66. The desert is silent. It is a good place to hear God’s voice. There are few distractions, except what I bring on myself. The night sky is beyond deep. It is certainly a place to wonder about heaven, as Gale wrote, and wonder about her mother waiting there for those …
who are still walking in and out
of ordinary time toward dust,
smudging ourselves
with ashes, proclaiming
the end and the beginning
of the palms waving in triumph.
Amid the anguish of temporal life, which ends, there is so much hope, which does not end. Over and over this year, the lectionary’s “Verse Before the Gospel” comes from Psalm 95. It comes from there again today:
If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
(Joel 2, Psalm 51, 2 Corinthians 5, Psalm 95, Matthew 6)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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