Walter Brueggemann's marked by ashes

Marked by Ashes
Ruler of the Night, Guarantor of the day . . .
This day — a gift from you.
This day — like none other you have ever given, or we have ever received.
This Wednesday dazzles us with gift and newness and possibility.
This Wednesday burdens us with the tasks of the day, for we are already halfway home
halfway back to committees and memos,
halfway back to calls and appointments,
halfway on to next Sunday,
halfway back, half frazzled, half expectant,
half turned toward you, half rather not.

All our Wednesdays are marked by ashes —
we begin this day with that taste of ash in our mouth:
of failed hope and broken promises,
of forgotten children and frightened women,
we ourselves are ashes to ashes, dust to dust;
we can taste our mortality as we roll the ash around on our tongues.
We are able to ponder our ashness with
some confidence, only because our every Wednesday of ashes
anticipates your Easter victory over that dry, flaky taste of death.
On this Wednesday, we submit our ashen way to you —
your Easter parade of newness.
Before the sun sets, take our Wednesday and Easter us,
Easter us to joy and energy and courage and freedom;
Easter us that we may be fearless for your truth.
Come here and Easter our Wednesday with
mercy and justice and peace and generosity.

Copyright (c) Walter Brueggemann (b. 1933)

Angels and demons - a brief meditation for Ash Wednesday by Manoj Kurian

At morning prayer for Ash Wedenesday we listened to the reading of Christ's baptism and temptation from Mark's gospel. Afterwards Theodore Gill read a large part of the reflection from the Guardian's comment is free on Orthodox Lent by Aaron Taylor which I mentioned over the weekend- noting in particular the contrast between the idea of Clean Monday in the Eastern tradition and Ash Wednesday in the Western tradition. We also reflected on the contrast in the text between water and wilderness, angels and demons, bright sadness and much more besides.
Morning prayer outline can be found here.

Later in the day we received a wonderful email from Manoj Kurian with this great prayer-poem which we then read aloud at Holden Evening Prayer. It's great when the morning liturgy becomes part of the evening leitourgia and things feed into and out of each other.

Angels, Demons...

The Devil, the Holy Spirit...

Clean Monday, Ash Wednesday...

Contradictions of the world...

Conflicts we carry...

Always room for improvement..

Always room for repentance..

Always room for forgiveness...

Always room for redemption.

Manoj Kurian copyright (c) WCC