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February ePonderings
from Pastor Kayla

February 22 we will gather for Ash Wednesday and enter into the season of Lent as a community.  In our Thursday morning women’s group we are reading the book “An Altar in the World” by Episcopal priest, Barbara Brown Taylor.  She speaks to the very essence underlying Ash Wed and what a powerful practice it can be to acknowledge the spiritual fruits of failure. 

“In Christian tradition, one of the most solemn days of the church year is Ash Wednesday, when believers enter a season of preparation for Easter by confronting their own mortality.  That this season lasts forty days is no mistake.  Those who follow Jesus are meant to follow him into the wilderness, where they, too, may be tested.  For me, the peak of the service comes when the priest invites the congregation forward to the altar rail to receive ashes on our foreheads.  Those of us who have done it before know that we are being invited to our own funerals.  Kneeling shoulder to shoulder at the rail, we wait our turn, hearing the priest say to others what will soon be said to us.  'Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,' the priest says, making the sign of the cross on my forehead.  I get the sudden urge to ask for more, to ask for a whole bowl of ashes on my head.  But it is not yet my turn for a whole bowl.  For now, all I get is a taste of death, while there is still time to say please and thank you to the Giver of all life.  Popular religion focuses so hard on spiritual success that most of us do not know the first thing about the spiritual fruits of failure.  When we fall ill, lose our jobs, wreck our marriages or alienate our children most of us find it hard to shake the shame of getting lost in our lives.  And yet, if someone asked us to point to the times in our lives that changed us for the better, a lot of those times would be wilderness times.  When the safety net has split, when the resources are gone, when the way ahead is not clear, the sudden exposure can be both frightening and revealing.  We spend so much of our time protecting ourselves from this exposure that a weird kind of relief can result when we fail.  To lie flat on the ground with the breath knocked out of you is to find a solid resting place.  This is as low as you can go.  You told yourself you would die if it ever came to this, but here you are.  You cannot help yourself, and yet you live.”  (Barbara Brown Taylor, “An Altar in the World” Pg 77-78)

At Peace church, we gather around each other during these tough moments in life.  Many of us walk through the valley of the shadow of death, but we look around to see others with ash crosses on their foreheads.  We are reminded that we are not alone on this journey, but among fellow travelers.  Please join us as our faith family enters into this holy season together.  
Peace,

Pastor Kayla