March 3, 2023

 

 

Psalm 130

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!
²     O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
    to the voice of my pleas for mercy!

³ If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
    O Lord, who could stand?
⁴ But with you there is forgiveness,
    that you may be feared.

⁵ I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
    and in his word I hope;
⁶ my soul waits for the Lord
    more than watchmen for the morning,
    more than watchmen for the morning.

⁷ O Israel, hope in the Lord!
    For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
    and with him is plentiful redemption.
⁸ And he will redeem Israel
    from all his iniquities.

 

I’m approaching this blank space as a confessional today. I don’t have wise words, just honest ones. My engagement with Lent is off to a bumpy start! 

 

I attended our Ash Wednesday evening service with anticipation. I love the rhythm of the liturgical year. How it pokes a stick in the calendar wheel and says, don’t forget to breathe in the story of God as you ramble through your days. I need them, the sticks. We are already through January and February and I feel like I have blinked twice since the year began. I love how the ashes narrow life right down in a moment, to a reminder that we have an end. And then we gather at the altar again to receive the bread of life, to be reminded of living water. Hope springs up and spreads its roots into the days to come. We hold our frailty and the joy of life in the kingdom alongside others who know it to be true as we walk out into a winter night.

 

I came home that evening, ashes still fresh on my brow (I even took a picture for a friend) and planted myself in front of our computer to complete the task of booking plane tickets for my daughter and I. Multiple tabs hung like clothes on a wash line across my screen, I was becoming slightly sweaty as prices continued to rise, numerous times my fingers pressed to my forehead in frustration with the sense that opportunity was slipping through my fingers. And then, the perfect alignment of price and dates arranged itself before me only to have the website deny, my credit card again and again and again. I snapped our laptop shut with some angst, and in that moment noticed my fingernails. There was a blackness under most of them. And believe it or not, I was confused as to why. My irritation over an unaccomplished task, morphed into a disgust with the state of my nail beds.  “What on earth did I get in to?” was muttered as I set about finishing laundry, tending to the animals and generally shutting down the house for the night. Standing in front of my bathroom mirror brushing my teeth with the relief of crawling under the covers mere moments away, I stared at my reflection in confusion. I even spit out my toothpaste and laid my brush down to lean in for a closer look. Why did my forehead look dirty? (My exact words. Not even lying!) I washed my face and was rewarded with the satisfaction of a clean brow that had previously not been so.  I buried my damp face in my towel, took a deep breath and thought –  tomorrow is Thursday.  And then, it dawned on me: today had been Wednesday, Ash Wednesday! I had ashes on my forehead just a few hours earlier and somewhere between 8 PM and 11 PM I had completely forgotten the holy thing I had received. My fretting had caused me to rub the mark of the cross into oblivion and leave in its wake confusion.

 

My brain has fluttered to the embarrassment & utter silliness of that moment a few times in the days since. There are a dozen “lessons” I could learn from my Ash Wednesday fumblings. But the loudest is - how can I say that I value something and yet so easily forget the thing I have gushed over? Truly, it is an example of “seeing yourself, walking away and forgetting what you look like.” (James 1:24). That reference in James is not part of our readings today, but Psalm 130 is. And it is vs. 7 that shouts to me today. “Oh, Israel, hope in the Lord! For, with the Lord, there is steadfast, love, and with him is plentiful redemption.” It speaks loudly because I know how to be condemned. I am one who is quick to mutter, “you should feel horrible”, as if trying harder to feel condemned somehow steadies already steadfast love for me. This is where the scripture pokes a stick in the spinning wheel of judgment. If God was a recordkeeping God,  none of us would show up on Ash Wednesday. But he’s not. He is abounding in steadfast, love and faithfulness. Malcolm Guite, in his Lenten collection of poetry, writes these words, “the gospel is not about giving up and going without for its own sake; it is about making room for something wonderful.“ So today, recounting dirty nails and a smudged face is me making room for something wonderful - the joy of being fully human and divinely adored. (Because I’m sure Jesus was laughing at me & thats pretty wonderful too.)

 

Blessings on you friends. 

May your lent be wonderful. 

 

- Pamela Ukrainetz