“The true joy of life is not in the grand gesture but in the consecration of the moment.”
~Kent Nerburn
Today the Christian household begins the observance of Lent. These forty days and seven Sundays help us, once again, to remember the consecration of moments. Our days are meant to connect our life story with the life story of Jesus. We will read the scriptures and allow ourselves to experience them with all the changes that have happened to us since this same time last year. Birthdays have been celebrated. Loved ones have departed. Jobs and careers have shifted or ended. The world has known unimaginable tragedies and experiences of overwhelming joy. All of our own life experiences have brought us to the beginning of the Lenten journey not quite the person we were this time last year. At some level we have integrated, denied, celebrated or fled our last year and all of that can bring us to this Lent with new eyes, a new heart.
Many of us will head to our places of worship and be marked with the sign of ashes today. Sitting yesterday with some friends, we discussed how this ritual has not always been a part of our own Lenten journey. For many of us this was something our Roman Catholic friends experienced but was not a common practice in our own Protestant churches. Over the years, however, this has changed. I think we are the better for it. This marking of ashes which symbolizes the fragility of our lives…..from dust you have come and to dust you will return…..is the consecration of the moment that begins our Lent. It is a way of saying, “Something holy is going to happen. If you pay attention. If you choose to notice. If you give yourself over to it.”
These seasons and rhythms of the church year are a way of reminding us to do just this. To pay attention to the moments and not just the grand gestures. Easter will be the grand gesture and certainly an important one. It is the day most churches pull out all the stops to tell the story of who they are. But the truth is we live our lives in the moments. And it is the moments that beg to, long to, deserve to be consecrated.
Consecrate: to set aside or declare as sacred. It is not a word we use very often in every day speech. We can tend to imagine that consecrating is something people, usually ministers or priests, do and others cannot. And yet, at least for me, what I believe is that when those ordained in their faith tradition consecrate…… bread, wine, water, people…..what is really happening is the recognition and honoring of the sacred nature that already exists in these thought-to-be common elements. It is a deep recognition of the presence of God in all.
Today we will take ashes, black and sooty, a substance that resembles soil and consecrate it. We will say words and make music and hold this black substance at the center of the worship we make. Finger will touch ash and then the forehead of each person who comes to be reminded of the fragile, precious life they are living. The invitation is to pay attention to how Jesus’ life….going into the wilderness, temptations, healing, laughter, storytelling, time spent with friends, encounters with enemies, betrayal, commitment to God, suffering, death…….informs our own living of these same experiences. Most of these are not grand gesture times but moments in which, if we are aware, hold seeds of the sacred. They are moments to be consecrated.
And so the journey begins.
