Day 1: Ash Wednesday

Jonah 3.4, 6-8

4 Jonah moved on into the city, making a day’s journey. He proclaimed, “Only forty days more, and Nineveh is going to be destroyed!” 

6 When the news reached the ruler of Nineveh, he rose from his judgment seat, took off his royal robes and dressed in sackcloth, and sat down in ashes. 7 A decree was then proclaimed throughout Nineveh, by decree of the ruler and the ruler’s ministers, as follows: “Citizens and beasts, herds and flocks, are to taste nothing! You must not eat anything, and you must not drink any water. 8 You must all dress in sackcloth and call on God with all your might; you must all renounce your sinful ways and the evil things you did.

“Lady Lazarus”

by Sylvia Plath

found in Collected Poems (HarperCollins, 1992)

I have done it again.   

One year in every ten   

I manage it——

A sort of walking miracle, my skin   

Bright as a Nazi lampshade,   

My right foot

A paperweight,

My face a featureless, fine   

Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin   

O my enemy.   

Do I terrify?——

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?   

The sour breath

Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh

The grave cave ate will be   

At home on me

And I a smiling woman.   

I am only thirty.

And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.   

What a trash

To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.   

The peanut-crunching crowd   

Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot——

The big strip tease.   

Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands   

My knees.

I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.   

The first time it happened I was ten.   

It was an accident.

The second time I meant

To last it out and not come back at all.   

I rocked shut

As a seashell.

They had to call and call

And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying

Is an art, like everything else.   

I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.   

I do it so it feels real.

I guess you could say I’ve a call.

It’s easy enough to do it in a cell.

It’s easy enough to do it and stay put.   

It’s the theatrical

Comeback in broad day

To the same place, the same face, the same brute   

Amused shout:

‘A miracle!’

That knocks me out.   

There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge   

For the hearing of my heart——

It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge   

For a word or a touch   

Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.   

So, so, Herr Doktor.   

So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,

I am your valuable,   

The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.   

I turn and burn.

Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash—

You poke and stir.

Flesh, bone, there is nothing there——

A cake of soap,   

A wedding ring,   

A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer   

Beware

Beware.

Out of the ash

I rise with my red hair   

And I eat men like air.

Today’s Art Practice

What You’ll Need

From Your Home:

• Water

• several disposable or washable containers for mixing paint in

• something to stir with (the handle of your paint brush will do in a pinch)

• a space where you can paint freely

From Your Envelope:

• Canvas board

• 3 small envelopes labeled "White," "Black," and "Ash"

• Paint Brush

Step One: Mix water into the your White Powdered Paint slowly until you achieve a consistency that you would like to paint with. This will depend on your paint preference, more water will make it more like watercolor, less water will make it behave more like acrylic.

Step Two: Repeat with Black Powdered Paint.

Step Three: Add half of the ashes into each of your prepared paints. (The ash will turn your white paint into an almost silver color, I recommend reserving some of the white to stay white)

Step Four: Use the paintbrush and any other materials you may have at home to create a greyscale painting on the provided canvas board.

*For those participating in group discussion around this series, this would be a great project to share with one another.

Challenge yourself to spend at least 20 minutes engaging with your art practice. This playlist can help you keep track of time. Once it is stops playing, 20 minutes will be over at that point you can choose to continue working or move on to something new.

Let’s Pray…

Marked by Ashes

by Walter Brueggeman

Ruler of the Night, Guarantor of the day . . .

This day - a gift from you.

This day - like none other you have ever given, or we have ever received.

This Wednesday dazzles us with gift and newness and possibility.

This Wednesday burdens us with the tasks of the day, 

for we are already halfway home

halfway back to committees and memos,

halfway back to calls and appointments,

halfway on to next Sunday,

halfway back, half frazzled, half expectant,

half turned toward you, half rather not.

This Wednesday is a long way from Ash Wednesday,

but all our Wednesdays are marked by ashes -

we begin this day with that taste of ash in our mouth:

of failed hope and broken promises,

of forgotten children and frightened women,

we ourselves are ashes to ashes, dust to dust;

we can taste our mortality as we roll the ash around on our tongues.

We are able to ponder our ashness with some confidence, 

only because our every Wednesday of ashes

anticipates your Easter victory over that dry, flaky taste of death.

On this Wednesday, we submit our ashen way to you -

you Easter parade of newness.

Before the sun sets, take our Wednesday and Easter us,

Easter us to joy and energy and courage and freedom;

Easter us that we may be fearless for your truth.

Come here and Easter our Wednesday with

mercy and justice and peace and generosity.

We pray as we wait for the Risen One who comes soon.