Month: March 2019

I suppose I’ve had an intriguing relationship with Ash Wednesday over the years. At times, the day has intersected with some challenging moments and chapters in our lives.

I’ve participated in Ash Wednesday. . .
. . . on the very day an opportunity fell through, and we learned we wouldn’t be making a move we really wanted,
. . . on a day when I was acutely aware I was about to lose a job,

and most challenging,
. . . on the exact date that one of the most beloved people of my life received a terminal cancer diagnosis.

In the Lenten tradition, Ash Wednesday serves as a recognition of impermanence and our own mortality. In various chapters of my life, the date has intersected with real occasions for grief.

And Ash Wednesday can be a powerful tradition:

On one hand, the day can provide an opportunity to feel something cathartic. In our broader culture, we often push away public expressions of grief. There aren’t enough occasions to honor our pain and the pain of others in visible ways. But on Ash Wednesday, people actually wear that pain and acknowledge it in each other’s presence.

And there there is a real expression of hope within this tradition too. Pain, grief, and mortality — real as they are — are not always the final word. In times of great anxiety, we can lean upon one another in speaking this hope:

No matter what we fear,
No matter what we lose,
No matter what we hear,
No matter what we’ve done,
No matter how we’ve failed,
No matter how we’ve been failed,
No matter what has been done to us,

We are loved with a LOVE we cannot lose.

I really do believe that.

And in a time of fear, grief, and anxiety, we can believe and display that every human being is absolutely Beloved — that each and all are worth the Love that forms their being.

Even in the face of death itself, it’s a truth that can be lived.

—Renee Roederer

After sleeping about an hour, I woke up at midnight from a dream about communion zucchini bread. It was called… wait for it…

The Zuccharist.

Surely, this must be prophesy. Surely, this must be a beckoning call for us to practice the Zuccharist this very week by buying or making some zucchini bread.

Will you enter this prophecy with me?

Bonus Points if you send me a picture of zucchini bread you are about to enjoy.

Bonus Bonus Points if you write the liturgy for eating zucchini bread at home among family and friends.

—Renee Roederer

Dr. Cindy Rigby was one of my theology professors at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary and one of my most significant influences during my years there as a student. On a number of occasions, I remember her saying something really wise about play, rest, and renewal, and I still think about it from time to time. I’m going to paraphrase her here so this isn’t an exact quote, but it’s close to her point. She said,

“So often we think about play, rest, renewal, and Sabbath as recreation, time away from the rat race… an extended period of time when we leave that rat race behind so we can rest up and then re-enter it again a bit more rejuvenated. But… what if play, rest, renewal, and Sabbath can be re-creation? So that they create us in new ways and actually change us? So that we don’t re-enter the same way? What if they change the rat race itself?”

That’s really wise. I want this re-creation. I imagine we all do.

And gratefully, I just had a full week of it. I stepped away from my typical rhythms and spent a week with loved ones in San Antonio. (Including lots of time holding a new, precious baby! How lucky am I?) And I’ve come home a bit different. Re-created in a way… with new hopes, new commitments toward better rhythms, and new priorities (actually this is a return toward…) the priorities that have been there all along but not tended to as well as they could be.

The trip re-created me a bit. Glad for it. I’m ready to re-enter my best priorities.

—Renee Roederer