Lord, do I really have to go back to the ashes
Today?
Must I put on the mantle of remembering my sin,
Again?
Isn’t it more humble of me to forget what was,
Before?
Could I be divine for a day instead of dust,
Once more?
Must repentance and dying to myself have to come around every. year,
Like this?
Couldn’t my winter of mourning pass without this exercise of my soul?
Could we just settle into the oil of gladness?
The mantle of praise, the garlands of beauty and the slowing down of time?
Instead of the fasting
The fasting
The fasting
The ashes
It seems like yesterday I begged off all the crumbs of my vices
Trying to feebly bear a cross of my own doing
Wear a cross of my own making
Tousle my hair over the cross-ness of my forehead
And pretend to not be hungry
When I was famished for all my sins
It seems too soon to have to forgive my brother
Love the other
Resist my druthers
Ashes seem so gray
So mid-week Wednesday
So counter-intuitive to The Way
You walked triumphant out of the grave
But I must--
Sit in the sorrow
Of my sin
Must grieve and lament,
Repent
I must die with you to new life,
Again
And I must walk the way of the Cross,
In Passion
To remember the Lord’s death until He comes
Is not for the faint of heart.
It is not for the proud.
It is not for the rich, the Pharisee or the Ninety-nine.
To remember the Lord’s death until He comes
Is for the woman at the well.
It is for the widow, the tax collector and the one.
Yes, it’s for me.
I really do have to go back to the ashes today, Lord
I must put on the mantle of remembering my sin, again
My humility is remembering the wretched soul I was, before
And being dust for a day, the most blessed trade off to eternity's immortality
I know You will
Slow down time and give beauty for these ashes
I know You will lift praise to this mourning
And be Bread to my hunger
When this day ends and this season You’ve lent us
Gives way to dawn
I know I will see You on the clouds
High and lifted up
Resurrected to new life
And the seedling You planted in me
Will grow
In the ashes of mourning
In the soil of repentance
In the rich, brown earth of a new grave of humility
—An oak of righteousness—-
Glory, to God.
I’m going back to the ashes today, Lord.
Have mercy on me, a sinner.
10:37 pm
2 March 2022
To grant those who mourn in Zion,
Giving them a garland {beauty} instead of ashes,
The oil of gladness instead of mourning,
The mantle of praise instead of a disheartened spirit of fainting. heaviness, despair,
So they will be called oaks of righteousness,
The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.
Isaiah 61:3
