Ashes, ashes, we all fall down

Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the darkening, the beginning of scarcity, the beginning of the end of God and the rift in our world where the Event, the True Human could appear.

I went to the Ash Wednesday service yesterday at John XXIII. I find that through the Liturgical Calendar the rhythms of life have room to breathe, to come to the light instead of being smothered in the candied, varnish of a normal, didactic Sunday service. We acknowledge our frailty, our trembling existence, how we are ashes and the truth of the matter is one day we will simply return to ashes. Eschatologically of course there is so much more to this story but to be in church and to have a recognition of this brutal, existential truth is refreshing.

The last line in one of the songs for the service described Christ as our 'day in the night.' And I loved the imagery of hope in the darkness and, not by any means ignoring the darkness, we still see through it to a deeper meaning, a truth that exists throughout.

The ashes that were giving to remind us of our many weaknesses were made from the palm branches of last years Palm Sunday and olive oil. The ash that we acknowledge as ourselves is the ash of an offering, a celebration of the strange entrance God made in our world. The subversive triumph Christ made on a donkey, the subversive God that Christ was and is, carried through the symbol of the palm branches we use to mark the path of a king and then burnt and mixed with anointing oils to be received when life turns fragile and dark. And life turns constantly, making its unexpected changes. So we hope and long through the liturgical seasons that embrace all turns of life that nothing escapes the reach of love and truth, that all will be captured in the eternal embrace, the disturbing and fracturing embrace of Christ crucified and risen.

Here is a quick list of places I frequent and have found Lenten resources:
- This is a big resource that will have daily reflections and articles following through Lent. ht: jonny baker
http://www.freshworship.org/lentblog07

- Lent devotions. (you can subscribe and have these emailed to you every day)
http://www.goshen.edu/cgi-bin/blosxom/devLent07/2007/Feb/21/Feb21-WelcometoGoshenColleges2007Lentendevotions

- Scot McKnight's Lenten reflections centered on the story of Mother Mary and Peter experiencing the fracture of following their Answer to be executed.
http://www.jesuscreed.org/?cat=37

- Another staple recurrence in my internet trolling habits, connexions, has a reflection for Ash Wednesday looking at shirking off moralism and embracing repentance.
http://theconnexion.net/wp/?p=2726

- Kester has an honest anecdote on fasting which is most likely the majority of experience. I was in the habit of fasting every Wednesday for awhile and there were those times immediately after school where I would find myself chowing down on a hunk of beef jerky the size of my hand before I'd catch myself...and then go right ahead and finish the entire package. http://kester.typepad.com/signs/2007/02/the_spiritual_f.html

stave off the atrophy

Interior:
Very good prayers (I especially like A Prayer for a Meal on a Tired Evening After a Day of Struggles in the City):
ht: Signs of Emergence

Art:
Jonny Baker has a five-part series that spans a couple of topics but, due to some interaction with Derrida's and Caputo's thought, I was attracted to his concept of The Gift in art.
The Gift, Artists are Poo, Wise Blindness, Blind Gratitude, Art and Prophecy

Also, a good look at Aesthetic Practice and the Postmodern Church at the always interesting site, The Church and Postmodern Culture.