I’m writing through Lent again this year, but instead of sending out daily meditations like I did for Advent, I’m planning on sending out weekly emails on Saturday night that compiles the week’s worth of writing in one place! If you’d like to follow along with the writing as it’s published, you can find it over on my Instagram page, as well as crossposted on my Facebook writing page!
Ash Wednesday
At Emory, my grad school, Buddhist monks would come make sand mandalas. They spent days creating gorgeous patterns in colorful sand. When the mandala was completed, they poured it into the stream. To make something so gorgeous & holy & throw it away! Beautiful things should be preserved! (That belongs in a museum!)
One reason Buddhist monks practice mandalas is to invite us to hold it all lightly, because it will all pass away. Nothing is less valuable because it’s only here for a moment. We’re here for just a moment, too.
It would be easy for this spiritual discipline to be heavy or morose, the way some Ash Wednesday services can be heavy with mortality & repentance. The heaviness is OK, & often necessary & good.
But there are other ways to hold these big ideas. Mandalas show us another way think about impermanence. They are practiced intentionally, but they’re also held lightly. They invite us to love them deeply, to show up fully to their creation, and still release them into the River with joy.
Just because something passes does not make it less valuable. That includes us. It includes our work, relationships, vocations, & the ways we practice spirituality & know God.
“From dust we came, to dust we shall return,” a pastor will say over me tonight, while I hold up my scruffy hair so he can smudge my head with burnt up palm branches from last years Palm Sunday. 𝘚𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘤𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘪𝘵, but whoever holds the world, & her own life, with open hands - what a gift, to know we aren’t as important as we think we have to try to be.
On Ash Wednesday, God tells us gently we are so small, & so loved, & so whole, as we are. We are invited to clutch everything less tightly, to move into everything - even repentance! - with lightness & gentleness, with the seriousness it deserves but also the open hands of a dusty, small person who knows how small they are & are not as bothered by it as they used to be.
We are so small. We are so loved. Whatever we discover in our hearts in this season of repentance & repair, may we hold it seriously but also lightly, knowing our dusty name is always Beloved.
When Lent and Spring Collide
I didn’t fast on Ash Wednesday this year. I did a tiny feast - I drank a mocha latte in a coffee shop, and took a long walk in Piedmont Park, and got a frozen taro boba tea. It's "fake spring" in Atlanta - these gorgeous 70 degrees that happen right before we’re hit with another fiercely cold few weeks. Now, though, it's lovely - energetically green buds & bluest sky, and maybe today I can believe that Aslan is on the move.
I love the liturgical year and tuning my soul to sacred time, & Lent used to be my favorite part of it. But living in Georgia, where spring comes early, Lent comes right at my annual tiny spring resurrection - when my soul stirs and believes that maybe we can come out of the dark, & maybe life will greet us laughing.
The physical seasons make it easier to spot this mismatch of external & internal, but it happens without the seasons help, too. Some of us in deep winter in the north feel “unLenten” too. Some of us are just now shifting out of a long season of grief. Some of us have been “giving up” things for years, and our souls are ready for joy.
Are we allowed? Are we permitted? What happens when our souls are out of sync with the church year? How do we honor this season of repentance & repair while also honoring where the Spirit is speaking to us
I think showing up with our fullest, non-performing self is always the first answer
And believing that self is a gift to the church, exactly as we’ve come.
If we come with lightness, that is what the Church needs. If we come with grief, that is what the Church needs. If we come with all consuming prophetic fire, that is what the Church needs.
We are part of the Church, we ARE the Church, so whoever we are this Lent is what the Church needs.
We are formed by the historic practices of the church. Submitting to that matters. But the liturgical seasons are formed by us, too. Whatever is true in our souls, the Church needs, and we form the Church into something more honest and more whole.
Whatever you bring into Lent, it belongs. Whatever it is, I hope it feels honest & real, and I hope you have a community that welcomes it and you as an integral, beautiful part of this Body of Christ.
Evening Prayer for Holding Lent Lightly
God, help us walk into this Lent lightly and with open hands.
Keep us from clutching on to our own spiritual plans so tightly that we can’t see where You may be inviting us into the unexpected.
Help us hold our spiritual goals loosely, ready to shift when we hear You say our name.
Protect us from using spiritual plans and habits to avoid being still, and listening.
God, sometimes we fill our lives with spiritual checklists because we’re so afraid we won’t recognize Your voice.
Please help us trust that You will speak to us in a way that we can hear, and that when we hear our name, we’ll have everything we need, in that moment, to join You where You’re gently inviting us.
God, You know who we are. You know what we bring into this Lenten season. You know our needs as well as our limits. You know how far we can stretch because of our resources, relationships, and stability or instability. You know where we’re strong and brave, and You know the places that scare us that we’re not ready to tackle yet. You know the growing edges of justice and repentance and holiness we can lean into in this season, because we have the resources right now to do brave things - and You know which brave things we aren’t ready for yet.
And You hold these disparate, confused parts of us with so much love.
You hold our grief and feelings of inadequacy and overwhelm without judgment, with so much gentleness. You hold our feelings bignesss and exuberance and strength with so much delight.
God, help us trust that You won’t call us into spiritual places we aren’t ready for.
Help us believe we can set down our self-improvement plan, and sit very still and listen, trusting that You know us well enough to take us where we need to go; and that You love us deeply enough to take us there gently.
Help us believe that there is nothing in Your heart towards us that isn’t tender. There is nothing that isn’t gentle. There is nothing that isn’t grace.
You love us so much, and so tenderly. Help us trust Your love as we step into this Lent with open hands, believing that wherever You lead us, however new or scary it feels, You will be with us, and we will be safe.
Amen.