For the burning-down days

We are connected by ash.

It’s fitting - if war can fit into anything - that the invasion of Ukraine has come right on the heels of Ash Wednesday, the entrance into a season of lament. The 40 days nestled between tomorrow and Easter are, in some churches, known as Lent, a time observed by self-denial and repentance.

This year, we didn’t need the calendar’s help. It’s caught us already bowed down, our spirits low and crawling. We are watching more than our eyes can see. We are collecting more than our hearts can hold. The stories I’ve heard of families fleeing their homes, of parents crying at train tracks, of people singing in subways are dropping like thin plates. I can’t carry them all as well as I want to, but I only have two hands.

I know that if we lived in Ukraine, it would be my 16-year-old son holding a gun. I feel a knot in my throat for those mothers, the brave young men wresting themselves from their desperate embraces. They don’t have suits of armor; they are boys made of flesh and bones, with soft noses and eyebrows their mothers have traced a thousand times. It’s too much to hold.

I saw some explosions, and whatever it was beneath the orange and grey clouds is now ash. Tomorrow, a priest at the Lutheran church I visit this time of year will smear an ashen cross on my forehead, and she will say words about death, and they will mean a fresh, black thing.

I have never known someone from Ukraine. But some of them are mothers, they are afraid, and they know about the ash, so certain cords bind me to them. I know of burning down in my own story. So many things burned down. I’m still kicking through the charred remains of my marriage, my former house, former family of four, my former health which I absolutely took for granted, and so many comforts that have since been incinerated.

I found a post I wrote for Ash Wednesday in 2015, when my own life was a furnace, and I was reminded how long the embers of loss have been glowing. Here is an excerpt:

It was shocking when we moved here to Montana, from California where the smallest strike of a match in public sends the authorities flocking to your side with rules and regulations. Southern California is fire country, and any spark, firework, or tossed cigarette feels like a threat. But in Montana, I watched our neighbor burn a massive pile of trash in the yard behind us. It produced twenty-foot-high flames no more than 100 feet from our house. And in an agriculturally centered community, widespread burning of land is common; a good fire purges, starts things over. Rebirth starts in the ashes.

But there is a space of time before things regrow, a hush of activity after the fury of the fire has died down and licked up the last bits of brush. In this quieter space, God is calling me to kneel and listen.

In Bible times, people mourned by scooping ashes over their heads. Think of the smell of a latent fireplace or your clothes after a campfire. Imagine handfuls of that ash in your hair, on your face, in your mouth. We tend to avoid mourning in our culture. Back then, people got intimate with the concept that things burn; they knew there was a time for grieving in the ash.

From 2015 to today, so many more things burned down, adding to the painfully ordinary list of circumstances that have invited me to get intimate with the ash. I’m past a lot of the explosions, but the smell of smoke is still on everything. As a bonfire draws glowing faces together at a beach or a retreat, our experience with the fire of loss and trauma draws us as humans into a collective of mourners. People who have tasted ash know how to hold hands in lament.

I would hold the Ukranian mothers’ hands if I could; I would make them soup and our eyes would talk about grief in ways our words never could. If I were there, the sitting at a table together, looking and seeing like that, would be something. In my spirit, it is still something. It’s not the only thing, but it’s something a bit more than helplessness.

I feel a constant pressure to muster up good feelings and hope lately; it’s not a bad thing if you can manage it. Yet, I suspect sometimes hope gets buried in the rubble, and it’s okay. Maybe hope takes time to bloom. Even tulips wait a year to come back up. The last two years, mine were eaten by deer as soon as they opened wide. I was surprised and disappointed both times.

This year, the tulips will come up again, all red and resilient. And one night, I’m sure the deer will sniff them out and leave me with a garden of green, pointless stalks. I’ll be neither surprised nor disappointed; this year, I’ll be thankful some silent, grace-filled creatures enjoyed a meal from my own hand.

Because maybe, in hard times, this is all there is: to feed each other with what we have. To accept provision from unlikely sources. To see and be seen. To survive on beauty right under our noses. To feel entitled to nothing but the taste of our own belovedness.

---

recipe for a fast.

When you are needing more than food to sustain you

I normally share a favorite recipe here. But today, I’m going to share my “recipe” for fasting. It’s a practice I occasionally pick up when I feel the need to focus on something especially pressing or especially painful.

I’ve created an hour-by-hour prayer map for Ukraine that we’ll be going through tomorrow (see below), and I invite you to join us in setting your phone alarm every hour and then praying for a minute or two on each topic. Of course, you can add your own topics; there are many more than 12, and I’d leave room for the Spirit’s leading.

If you want to fast with me as well, I thought I’d share how and why fasting helps. It’s simply an act of self-denial that raises your awareness of need. If this is your first time fasting, you’ll probably be shocked at the number of times you think about food. You’ll linger in the kitchen and realize it’s not the easiest place to hang out. And you’ll get to practice shifting awareness of your hunger to an awareness of something else, in this case, the prayer needs of the people in Ukraine.

Practically, I tend to fast this way: I eat a good dinner the night before, and then fast until dinner that day. Essentially, I’m skipping only breakfast and lunch, and maintaining my hydration with water, herbal tea, and sometimes a bit of heated broth. This may be unconventional, but the salt is wonderful respite during a fast. I’m sure some people have fasting “rules” that may prohibit one thing or another, but this is simply how I do it, and for me, it works. And by “works,” I mean gently prods my body over and over in such a way that I have a built-in reminder to focus on the important thing on which I’m trying to focus.

Matthew 4:4 says, “Man cannot live on bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Jesus says this when he’s fasting in the desert. He’s giving us a hint: food alone is not the only thing we need to sustain us. And fasting pairs nicely with reading Scripture, prayer, or other spiritual practices.

If your body is in a place to tolerate a bit of self-denial (if you struggle with disordered eating, you might want to skip fasting), explore what it means to be fed with something besides food. What does your spirit crave? Which grumbles and groans of your heart surface when your body aches for food? And how can you direct attention to the needs of people in Ukraine while you feel the intensifying needs of your own flesh?

Tonight, set up a special mug and some tea next to it; fill your favorite water bottle. Get out a journal and a pen, if you enjoy writing out your prayers. Bring them with you into your day tomorrow. Maybe even find an Ash Wednesday service to stream or attend. Think of what’s burned down in your own life. Where have you tasted ash? When did hope become buried?

We are connected in lament.

It is too much to hold.

You are not alone.

You are the Beloved,

Leslie

---

pray with us.

---