Beguiling Dust

Tags

dust, Lent, Religious Thoughts

Usually, not always but usually, I find myself drawn towards Moses taking off his shoes to walk on holy ground in Lent, this year it has been different.  This year it has been dust.  Why has dust so beguiled me this year?

For over 20 years I have begun Lent by marking the faithful with the sign of the cross in ash on their foreheads, for longer than that I have felt the sign traced on my own forehead as I knelt before the altar.  This year the dust remains like never before unseen but etched into my eyelids dust everywhere.

As I am sure I don’t need to say, we all lead busy lives and this Lent is as hectic as most so in-between the mid-week service and a meeting with a CoS colleague last Wednesday I sighed and thought should really do a quick bit of dusting, only I didn’t.  I ended up drawing crosses in it instead (I tried to take a photograph but there wasn’t enough dust for it to be clear, slightly better in black and white.)

The dust being cleared away for the Cross.

Is it too late to give up dusting for Lent and take up drawing crosses in all the dust I see?

This post is also over on the Beauty from Chaos reflections for Lent, blog, if you haven’t already gone and checked it out why not?  You are missing some wonderful writing and pictures to journey with, not to mention the angels.

Dust of the Earth

Tags

dust, Lent, Psalm 119:25, Religious Thoughts

My soul clings to the dust;
revive me according to your word.

Psalm 119:25

Do we cling to the dust of the earth?  Yes we must see the dust, yes we must acknowledge the dust, yes we must tackle the dust, yes we must value you those trampled down in it.  But surely we shouldn’t cling to it, making it an idol.  The dust of earthly desires and possessions, the dust of earthly vanities and hopes, the dust of death to which our mortal bodies will return.  If we cling to the dust of the earth, where then is our hope?

Don’t Forget To Count The Trees

Tags

Anna Karenina, Counting, Genesis 15:5, Lent, Religion, Trees, Vaulue

In Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina; Stepan visits Levin while in the process of selling a forest to a third party. Levin thinking that he has undervalued the sale price asks Stepan if he has ‘counted the trees’; Stepan being a townie laughs at such an idea and replies; ‘Count the sands of the sea, number the stars.  Some higher power might do it.’

For Stepan the idea of counting trees was so alien that he didn’t know where to even begin and saw it as something only God could do.  Nothing Levin said could convince him that if he counted the trees he would see that he had undervalued the land and it was worth far more.

What have we undervalued recently?

Where are the trees we need to count this Lent?

The Unseen Dust

Tags

dust, Lent, Religion

There are times when our eyes are suddenly opened for us.

Times when we suddenly become aware of things around us.

Things that are always there only tend to go unseen.

We all do it, none of us are immune.

One of those times is when the sun streams through the window and catches the dust in the air.

You glance up from your chair, your book falling to your knees, the warm sun streaming through the window and warming your skin, distracting you from the text that has so beguiled you up till now, that instead of being out there in that sun you sit inside and read.  The sun however is having none of it, the sun reaches into your hiding place and makes you pay attention to it.  So you are looking up towards the window and between you and it, also lit by the suns warm beams, are flecks of dust dancing around the room.  Of course those motes are always there, floating about in the air around us we are just blind to them, unaware of their presence as we go about our daily activities.  Oh yes somewhere we know they are there but they only come into view in the light of the sun, it is only then our attention is drawn to them, only then we notice them in our midst.

Flecks of dust hidden in our midst, unseen expect by the light of the sun.

What else is hidden right before us, right in our midst?

This is another of my contributions to Beauty from Chaos – bookmark it, add it to your reader, or pop over and visit it.  For each day there is at least one new offering from a range of people.

Stripped Bare for Lent

Tags

Bare, Lent, Poem, Religion, Transformation

Stripped bare for Lent down to the framework God has built,
the skeleton that is to be re-clothed.
Re-clothed with new shoots
fresh growth
and God given beauty.
Day by day the purple of sorrow will fade from view,
not in a blink of an eye but gradually
slowly
little by little.
Transformed.

With eyes willing to see
can we see what God sees?
With all the trappings we have placed removed
with nothing – not even a fig leaf -
to hide behind in our own Lenten nakedness.
Can we see?
See what God sees,
as God sees,
the potential, the promise,
the bright raiment waiting to clothe us.
Clothe us in a splendour beyond our imagination,
beyond our wildest dreams,
beyond all hope and reason.
Reborn.

This was origionally a piece I did for the Lenten blog Beauty from Chaos were you will find at least one new post every day from a host of authors.

Tightrope Walk for Lent

Tags

Beauty from Chaos, Lent, Religious Thoughts

A speck
a mote
a fleck
an iota

One particle of dust among a cosmos full of particulates.
That is what we are in the vast sum of things.

Precious
Loved
Treasured
Special

Unique
That is what we are in God’s eyes.

The mystery, the awe, the wonder of the tightrope walk of Lent.

We are but dust and to dust we will return.

We are but dust and to God we will return.

We are but dust, irritating, choking, obscuring dust.

We are but dust the beginnings of a pearl.

The tightrope walk between what we are and what we will be.

This post also appear over on the Beauty from Chaos reflections for Lent blog check back there every day for more posts from a variety of people.

The Snows of Lent

Tags

Lent, Psalm 147:16, Religious Thoughts

The Lord gives snow like wool;
and scatters frost like ashes.
Psalm 147:16

Ash Wednesday was white with snow.  The first day of purple reflecting dazzling light around, ensuring that there were no dark places.

Lent isn’t a dark place, it is a place of increasing light as we discover more of God and more of ourselves.  Yes it goes dark as it nears it’s end as Good Friday and the cold dark tomb of Holy Saturday arrive, but for now it isn’t dark and we mustn’t make it dark.  Lent might not be a time for Alleluias but it isn’t a time for glum faces.  We can only truly see with light to see by and if we are to take Lent seriously we must bathe in the Light and rejoice that we can be changed.

In the Blink of an Eye

Tags

Lent, Psalm 51:10

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me.
Psalm 51:10

40 days to accept the clean heart God offers, to acknowledge the spirit that is there waiting for our wills to bend.   The 40 days will be up in the blink of an eye.  Of course God’s grace isn’t time limited, but if we can’t do it in these 40 days, these days which we set aside and declare with ash our frailty, if we can’t do it in these day when will we do it?

The Law of the Lord

Tags

Liturgical Seasons, Psalms

During Lent I have been preaching a series of sermons on the Psalms and then we have been having a discussion on a Wednesday evening about issues raised in the sermon.  Last Sunday it was Psalm 19:

¹ The heavens are telling the glory of God;
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
² Day to day pours forth speech,
and night to night declares knowledge.
³ There is no speech, nor are there words;
their voice is not heard;
⁴ yet their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
In the heavens he has set a tent for the sun,
⁵ which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy,
and like a strong man runs its course with joy.
⁶ Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
and its circuit to the end of them;
and nothing is hidden from its heat.
⁷ The law of the Lord is perfect,
reviving the soul;
the decrees of the Lord are sure,
making wise the simple;
⁸ the precepts of the Lord are right,
rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the Lord is clear,
enlightening the eyes;
⁹ the fear of the Lord is pure,
enduring for ever;
the ordinances of the Lord are true
and righteous altogether.
¹⁰ More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey,
and drippings of the honeycomb.
¹¹ Moreover by them is your servant warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.
¹² But who can detect their errors?
Clear me from hidden faults.
¹³ Keep back your servant also from the insolent;
do not let them have dominion over me.
Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression.
¹⁴ Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable to you,  O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

Last night we had a great discussion about those laws which were around in the time of this psalm first being sung but we totally ignore and don’t even think about – such as the wearing of mixed fabrics – also why there are other laws of that time which still challenge the church so.

Rivers in the Sand

Tags

Isaiah, Liturgical Seasons, Photography

 

Trickles of water carving pathways through the sand proof that there is water, working its way around small pebbles journeying onward, ever onward.

Draw near to me, hear this!
From the beginning I have not spoken in secret,
from the time it came to be I have been there.
And now the Lord God has sent me and his spirit.
Thus says the Lord,
your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:
I am the Lord your God,
who teaches you for your own good,
who leads you in the way you should go.
O that you had paid attention to my commandments!
Then your prosperity would have been like a river,
and your success like the waves of the sea;
your offspring would have been like the sand,
and your descendants like its grains;
their name would never be cut off
or destroyed from before me.

Isaiah 48:16-19