Ash Wednesday 2016

Inglewood Presbyterian Church, thank you.
The Presbyterian pastor leans forward and strokes a cross in ashes across my forehead. It's Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent.

First, an introduction to Lent and the Lenten Blog 2016.

Yesterday I walked through the neighborhood and saw the notice of a short church service on Ash Wednesday. I sit with 30 others, meditating on God's love for us.

We are embraced by divine love so bountiful that it that offers itself up for humanity to the point of death. Love seeks to reconcile us to the One True Love, our God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We are his beloved!
The first medallion, a painted discipline
"Ash Wednesday"

So, what is Lent?

  • The tradition dates back to the Church Fathers. Lent began as instruction for new converts, who would be baptized Saturday night before their first communion on Easter morning.
  • In the church calendar, Lent includes the 40 days before Easter, not counting Sundays.
  • Typically, it involves a deprivation like fasting, in memory of Christ's sacrifice for us.
  • Traditionally the fast meant not eating for a time, but instead spending time in reflection and prayer.
  • Today Lent is celebrated many ways. It begins with Maudy Tuesday and Ash Wednesday.
  • On Ash Wednesday, the palm fronds from last year's Palm Sunday (Triumphal Entry of Christ the King into Jerusalem) are burned during a church service. The priest of pastor draws a cross on the believer's forehead with the ashes.
Though I will remember this time in various ways, I have 3 disciplines in mind this year:
1. Meditate on an aspect of life and my walk with Jesus through the lens of my word for 2016: resignation (to his will and plans).
2. Blog daily as a spiritual discipline. (This one becomes tedious and difficult a few weeks into Lent, based on what I remember from other years!)
3. Paint a 1" medallion for each day of Lent, commemorating what Christ has accomplished.

------------- 
Resignation: Ash Wednesday

A smudge of
commemoration
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 1 John 3:1 ESV

In the late afternoon, a half-liter of tea spills on curtains, floor, books, computer wires, desk, and everything else that it can flow to. Quick, send the darlings upstairs. (Be a good Oma!) Breathe.

Before I can get the curtains off the rods, the white is dyed yellow-brown and the mop-up towel is likewise stained. Laundry. Removal. Wipe the spill. Breathe.

Shall I go to church? I resign my inclination to stay home. Time to attend to the disciplines of the season, acknowledging that God is present among his people and will bless us.

I am glad I went - what a wonderful, tender meeting, focused on renewal and regard for God's love.

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