Ash Wednesday

Lent – purple – Spring!
Doesn’t look much like spring out there today!
I've always had a hard time connecting spring and ashes
Spring represents life – ashes represent death
Forests where the burning is done purposely in order to renew the soil and let the vegetation grow back and renew the forest floor.
Out of the ash, new life can emerge
Out of the snow and death of winter, new life can emerge

Ashes are a reminder that we are just that, carbon and water, yet if you were to simply mix the two, you could never have it create beautiful works of art or compose heartbreakingly wonderful music. We can do that because in addition to carbon and water, we are spirit. Animated Stardust.

In the funeral liturgy, we say Ashes to ashes, Dust to dust. When we die, and our human body breaks down, we are not lost. What makes us who we are as children of God, little sparks of the divine, lives on. We take those memories with us, the good the bad the hurts, the loves, the terrible things we've done, the beautiful things we've done, those whose lives we have touched and those who have touched our lives. We don't just live on in the memories of those left behind, we live on in spirit with God.

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust… Spirit to Spirit

Sometimes on this journey we choose what is wrong. We make mistakes and we fall short of becoming who our Creator and Redeemer is calling us to be. Today is a time where we honestly face and admit our frailties, using the ancient sign of ashes.

We acknowledge and ask God for forgiveness in our failure to be who it is we are called to be.

our lack of love

our tempers

our hatred

our ego

our pride

our jelously

our half-hearted Christian committment

our attempts to make ourselves feel better through others suffering

and the list goes on...

But it's not about guilt - it's about God's grace.

Today doesn't end with ashes, our lives don't end with ashes. We are pure spirit, and by the Grace of God we are able to rejoice in life after life.

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust.... Spirit to Spirit

Thanks be to God!

Pilgrimage

This will be the view in my not so distant future... Yes folks, you read it right. I'm going back to Iona. I leave July 22nd and return on August 6th. This is my anticipated reward for a grueling summer of CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) at Toronto Western Hospital, and after the conclusion of my full time parish internship. All this is in preparation for next year. I still don't quite know what I've gotten myself (and Jonathan!) into... co-head of Divinity... I'm looking forward to the challenge - but I'm also looking forward to this much needed break! I'm going to be staying with my friend who is a resident on the island in a little house called Dunsmeorach (I know I've spelled that wrong...!). She came last year to stay with me here in Toronto, and may come back next year when she's finished her 3 year stint on the island.

We are going to end the trip with a tour of Glasgow - see the sights generally have some fun!

I am so unbelievably excited. I'm going back. I'm going home. The little island that (as a friend wrote) calls me by whistle and by prayer.

In Iona of my heart,

Iona of my love,

instead of monks' voices

shall be lowing of cattle;

but ere the world

come to an end,

Iona shall be as it was.

Visio Divina

I came across this term - Visio Divina and my heart lept! I have friends who find God in music - yes, I love music, but I can't make music - I lack the training and the time to practice - but I have friends who use thier music as prayer, and their time playing as worship. I have friends who go out into the woods to walk and pray and simply 'be' in creation. I love doing that too, but have little opportunity here in Toronto to go for a nice long walk where you don't see cars and stores!

I have always felt that my art is a form of prayer; painting, calligraphy, cross-stitch. When I go to a gallery I see others works and the light and life that comes through in them. One of my favourite places to go and visit is the McMichael Gallery

It is such a place of peace and prayerful contimplation for me. To see the inspired beauty that comes from deep within someone and displayed for all to see, is like a concert for the eyes.

I think I'm going to go and buy me some paints, and use that easel that my best friend gave me for Christmas. Maybe that will bring my hardening prayer life back from the desert... water that dry soil and stop the truly deep and irreversable cracks from forming...