Pastor’s Corner - February 18, 2021
Dear Friends,
Holy week last year was something so foreign to me. I can imagine that some of you may have felt unusual and many emotions as well. Holy week might be my favorite week of the year. Growing up as a pastor’s kid, the whole week was spent in preparation for Maundy Thursday, Holy Friday, Saturday’s stories/crafts/egg hunt, and Sunday’s joyous celebrations, and it was spent in a church building – not always the same church building but in a building. As I got older, I also tried to meditate out in a garden at some point, but not being in a church building bothered me more than expected because in general I like to be outside and on the move out in the community more than inside a building. At that time, I had not expected for us to pass through all the days that our faith tradition tends to name as especially important or special in the church/liturgical year, but we have. We have one final holy day within the faith practices that I have grown up with that I will experience for the first time in my life not physically gathered with a church community in a church building – Ash Wednesday. As I write this, we are approaching Ash Wednesday. By the time you read it, Ash Wednesday will have passed but it still felt relative to share.
This change has caused me to reflect on ashes in a very deep way, perhaps more deeply than other years. I remember the first year that I realized that the scripture verse that I had grown up hearing with the application of the ashes didn’t actually use the word ashes but dust. That actually brought me a bit of a laugh this year when first experiencing sadness that we would not be together in the physical way that I have known it. I may not have access to ashes, but I have plenty of dust. My life is full of dust. I am dust. From dust I have come, and to dust I will return (Genesis 3:19). How will I allow God to use the dust that makes up me in the space in between – the space where I am dust filled with breath? How will I connect with the dust that I tread upon? How will I express my appreciation for it? How will I honor the relatives who have walked on it before me and who will walk on it after me? In what ways will I listen and follow God in order to be a loving neighbor to the other creatures breathed out of dust, those whom I know and those whom I will never meet this side of dust?
I think I’ll be reflecting on dust, dirt, and ashes throughout this season of Lent – this season of preparation and repentance – this time of turning away from ego and towards Jesus our Leader and Liberator – this opportunity to be drawn more closely to our Creator. Would you like to join me in this journey? You are in my prayers, and if there are ways that we can be of support to you in your journey of life, please be in touch. It is a blessing to travel paths of discipleship in the faith of Jesus with you. May you feel the grace of the Maker of the heavens and the earth, the grace of Jesus, and the direction of God’s Spirit this day and in the days to come~ Sarah
“Then the Lord God formed a human from the dust of the ground and breathed into the nostrils the breath of life, and the human became a living being.”
Genesis 2:7
