40 Days

Good morning! Today I'd like to share my morning devotional with you, along with this card. I created this card quite some time ago for Vee (vjwhitehead's) Inspirational Bible Verse Swap on SCS. I thought it appropriate to share with you today with this being the first day of Lent. For me, the butterflies on this card signify a change...new life, through accepting God and Jesus into my life. Much like the butterflies, we are called to change, and offered new life through our acceptance, and with that change we are set free in the promise of God's steadfast and forgiving love. I especially enjoyed my devotional this morning, and I hope you do too. Have a blessed Ash Wednesday, and may the promise of change and new life be with you today and always! Ash Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down

Bible Excerpt from Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
Sanctify the congregation, assemble the aged; gather the children, even infants at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her canopy.

Reflection by Maren Tirabassi

Ring around the rosy, A pocket full of posies;Ashes! ashes! we all fall down."Ring Around the Rosie" is a nursery rhyme first printed in 1881, but sung to the current tune as early as 1790. A popular meaning "discovered" in the 1950's was that it was a coded description of the Great Plague--its red ring-shaped rash, warding herbs, a sneeze, and death, but later scholars determined that it was simply a playground game involving holding hands in a round dance and then collapsing into a giggling pile.The forty days of Lent begin today. Lent is observed by some with a season-long abstinence from chocolate, thoughtless remarks, exceeding the speed limit, or cell phones! Others supplement their daily lives by reading an inspirational book, prayer or meditation, taking public transit to work, or writing a letter each week to someone who matters. Some congregations mark Ash Wednesday with a sanctuary open for silent vigil. Others draw a cross of ashes burned from last year's palms on one another's foreheads or hands in a reminder of human mortality, while still others write words of remorse on index cards and burn them in a wok.A simple observance is best. This is a time to hold the hands of others and name our falleness, whether we embody that in visible grit or a tumble. We circle each year to remember and sanctify Good Friday's sorrow, yet never forget that we have the Easter giggle in our souls.

Prayer

God, sanctify this day our words and our intentions, our repentance of the past and re-commitment to the future. Al-le-lu-ia: we all rise up. Amen.