Zoe:

Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem revertis.

Translation, “Remember, human, that you are dust, and to dust you will return. Genesis 3:19

What we call the beginning is often the end/And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from. T.S. Eliot

Lent is messy. Litter is uncovered and strewn everywhere. It is muddy and even dirty. The word Lent itself comes from a word that means to lengthen. The days get longer. Depending on where you live the earth thaws. Our streets are dirty and yes dusty. Our windows need to be cleaned and returned to their luster. This time of year we notice, the dirt. How filthy things are. Even the earth needs a good bath and thus the phrase “April showers bring May flowers.” The rhythms of our calendar reflect these sacred movements. It is ironic that we as humans who inhabit the planet tend to forget these Sabbath rhythms of life in the calendar year. I start to notice my yard. The new mole holes, about 35 of them this year, (those things really bug a type-A like me-but I digress). Last year’s leaves are lying around and even blowing in the wind. They are almost totally disintegrated for compost but in need of refreshing too. So it is time to remember, to start at the end. Yes, it is time to get basic and even primal again.

Sometimes the only antidote for a viral dis-ease whether in our bodies or outside of us is to take more of it, in little doses. That is what we do in Lent, during Ash Wednesday. We take more of the poison. We rub ash, dirt, on our foreheads in a service of ashes. In this rubbing of the cross on our foreheads we remember our death and our life; our baptism. It is only the elect who really keep this profound moment in the church calendar, but with gusto we enter into it.

For those of us “within” the faith we remember our mortality and to whom we belong in baptism. We are marked on our foreheads with the cross of Jesus, which is a tree to call us back to a garden—to remember our story and therefore our journey. The marketer in me says that the imposition of ashes is our “branding,” a form of being tattooed into a life and a journey of meaning.

Coming back to our baptism is hard work, like spring cleaning; we roll up our sleeves and turn on the power washers. We just need to get the dirt off. We really need to get bathed in fresh waters and new beginnings. All of us as elect and penitent sojourners, will learn once again that when lent is over we have failed and God has not and, most importantly, we are not in the same “place” that we began.

Lent even has its own shape in the liturgical year. It is shaped by 40 days. The week before the first Sunday of Lent is characterized by the Carnvial or Fat Tuesday as we have become acquainted in a popular context. It is a season of “partying hard”--Sorry about that. I would ask that you not enter into that as your Pastor. Then Ash Wednesday and the three days before the first Sunday of Lent are characterized by three key images: the expulsion from paradise, the great flood and the journey of Abraham and Sarah.

I invite you to enter into our form and shape as we have imagined it for this year. I invite you to open the door and walk through, reluctantly if you need to but just consider taking one step at a time. Memento, remember the end, the beginning, and the middle and then pray that you would be re-membered into the story of all stories.

Our journey is to Easter and beyond. I will be preaching through a Lenten sermon series entitled, Lent Prayer Journal: People, Prayers, and Pilgrim Provocations. I will use this season of 40 and the shape of time to get primal as a source of spiritual reflection, renewal, and contemplation and to get de-littered. I will build one prayer on the next, growing in ethos, imagination and potential strength as we grow closer to our endtroduction—Easter! This end and thus beginning is our promised land. There will be special music and other assorted resources to aid you in your journey to be different than when you began. I am reminded of a great quote by St Francis of Assisi (I think he said it) “When I do not feel close to God, who do I imagine moved?” It is a rhetorical question that calls us to get re-membered as a person, a church, and a chosen people to God’s story and not our personal version of it.

But there is More! In a world gone awry always wanting more, here in this journey is what we all really need, really want. It is not more, more, more, which is just “more of the same” but just plane More! The MORE!

Please share with me what you find here during this season. My guess is that you will find clothing for your nakedness (Adam and Eve), a burning bush (Moses), the whisper of God (Elijah), the silence of God (Job-the Biblical character - not a job, but you just might find a job too), hearts that thaw and turn home (Jeremiah), prodigals returning, lost being found, your own life, your own soul, your own reason for being, your much needed More!

By the way aren’t clean windows the best? You can see so much better and further too!