A few days ago I had a dream that I was at a local Christian church, standing in line to receive ashes. But instead of receiving a tiny cross to the forehead, I leaned forward into a bucket of ashes and doused my face, neck and head with soot.
This dream- occurring two days before Ash Wednesday, and on the same day I had been googling 'funeral celebrant'- speaks of religious rite and passage. It is also symbolic of where I find myself year after year on Ash Wednesday, fully embodied and immersed in life in a season of contemplation.
Confession: I love this time of year, despite its bleakness. It's as if we have been climbing a mountain all winter, and especially this winter of heavy snows, and are almost to the peak. While I have lost so many loved ones in February and early Marches past, their presence and love seem particularly close as the year winds round again this way. The time of death and loss is coupled with the turning of the season- the signs of spring, nests and crocuses- beginning to peak through the earth. It's peak labor, and life is just aching to be born.
Grief too has an ache in it- and a tremendous love. I know God so near in grief, the heart broken open and compassion knocking at the door in the face of a neighbor or friend. I know God in memory, and the beauty of a life well-lived. And I know God in emptiness, in the patience to hold still and simply be with the places I cannot bear to hold alone.
And what of religious rite? I did not go to Ash Wednesday services at a Christian church, but spent the day living my life. Cat litter, pen ink, granola bar crumbs, and street salt were the sacred objects of my daily rites.
The Sunday before I attended service at my Unitarian Universalist church; with a sermon my minister gave entitled 'Nuclear Numbing', ashes took on another meaning- stories of Hiroshima, incinerated bodies, the dehumanized other, atomic bomb earrings in the White Sands gift shop, and the blind eye...the lie. Here perhaps, more poignantly, are ashes- our ashes. 'From dust you came, to dust you shall return'. And yet what speaks to me in the story of a dying Japanese girl giving to another child the lunch her mother made her? A final heartbreaking gesture of life, the precious human body and spirit, the life and pain and love in between.
Bearing witness. Awakening. Opening eyes to what is, and to the deep call to respond from a place of inner truth. With tears in the sanctuary, I found myself in our final song beside a lively elderly woman whom I adore, leaning with our arms around each other, singing 'We'll build a land'. Hugs on the way out with fellow congregants were warm and sustained. Petitions were signed, forums planned: to take a stand for nuclear disarmament. From the broken heart and deepened awareness of devastation and threat emerged a call to action.
It was one of the most powerful worship services I have experienced, not only breaking open my heart but also connecting me with my call to ministry as a poet and spiritual director-- a call that urges me to honor the soul, to open the heart, and to support the fullness of human life. Later I was struck with awe that I will be traveling to that same Southwest desert (a few hours from White Sands, in Santa Fe) a week after Easter, with teachers of many traditions and nations, with wisdom ancient and emerging, with hope for a better way. It seems now that each day I live fully into my work of seeing the holy in the mundane and accompanying others on their journeys, I am answering the question I have asked so many times, the question that changed my life: What is the one thing you can do for peace? Answering not on my own, but as an instrument of the Spirit...
So ashes, ashes... I turn to the humus of the sacred earth, and mold it into clay. I cover my face and hands in the dusty symbol of entering a time of spiritual contemplation and preparation. I repent for the times I have been blind, numb, dull, asleep to the preciousness of human lives and forgotten my ancient mother earth. And I bury myself like a bulb beneath her soil, turning inward for a time until I am bathed by light and love, and resurrected- called to go forth into action- with the spring.
This dream- occurring two days before Ash Wednesday, and on the same day I had been googling 'funeral celebrant'- speaks of religious rite and passage. It is also symbolic of where I find myself year after year on Ash Wednesday, fully embodied and immersed in life in a season of contemplation.
Confession: I love this time of year, despite its bleakness. It's as if we have been climbing a mountain all winter, and especially this winter of heavy snows, and are almost to the peak. While I have lost so many loved ones in February and early Marches past, their presence and love seem particularly close as the year winds round again this way. The time of death and loss is coupled with the turning of the season- the signs of spring, nests and crocuses- beginning to peak through the earth. It's peak labor, and life is just aching to be born.
Grief too has an ache in it- and a tremendous love. I know God so near in grief, the heart broken open and compassion knocking at the door in the face of a neighbor or friend. I know God in memory, and the beauty of a life well-lived. And I know God in emptiness, in the patience to hold still and simply be with the places I cannot bear to hold alone.
And what of religious rite? I did not go to Ash Wednesday services at a Christian church, but spent the day living my life. Cat litter, pen ink, granola bar crumbs, and street salt were the sacred objects of my daily rites.
The Sunday before I attended service at my Unitarian Universalist church; with a sermon my minister gave entitled 'Nuclear Numbing', ashes took on another meaning- stories of Hiroshima, incinerated bodies, the dehumanized other, atomic bomb earrings in the White Sands gift shop, and the blind eye...the lie. Here perhaps, more poignantly, are ashes- our ashes. 'From dust you came, to dust you shall return'. And yet what speaks to me in the story of a dying Japanese girl giving to another child the lunch her mother made her? A final heartbreaking gesture of life, the precious human body and spirit, the life and pain and love in between.
Bearing witness. Awakening. Opening eyes to what is, and to the deep call to respond from a place of inner truth. With tears in the sanctuary, I found myself in our final song beside a lively elderly woman whom I adore, leaning with our arms around each other, singing 'We'll build a land'. Hugs on the way out with fellow congregants were warm and sustained. Petitions were signed, forums planned: to take a stand for nuclear disarmament. From the broken heart and deepened awareness of devastation and threat emerged a call to action.
It was one of the most powerful worship services I have experienced, not only breaking open my heart but also connecting me with my call to ministry as a poet and spiritual director-- a call that urges me to honor the soul, to open the heart, and to support the fullness of human life. Later I was struck with awe that I will be traveling to that same Southwest desert (a few hours from White Sands, in Santa Fe) a week after Easter, with teachers of many traditions and nations, with wisdom ancient and emerging, with hope for a better way. It seems now that each day I live fully into my work of seeing the holy in the mundane and accompanying others on their journeys, I am answering the question I have asked so many times, the question that changed my life: What is the one thing you can do for peace? Answering not on my own, but as an instrument of the Spirit...
So ashes, ashes... I turn to the humus of the sacred earth, and mold it into clay. I cover my face and hands in the dusty symbol of entering a time of spiritual contemplation and preparation. I repent for the times I have been blind, numb, dull, asleep to the preciousness of human lives and forgotten my ancient mother earth. And I bury myself like a bulb beneath her soil, turning inward for a time until I am bathed by light and love, and resurrected- called to go forth into action- with the spring.
No comments:
Post a Comment