Ash Wednesday

Today we received an email from an organization that we regularly support: Generous Space Ministries. They are a group working to dismantle religious-based harm, pursue intersectional justice, and celebrate LGBTQ2+ lives in both the church and our world. Their site has some great resources and an active blog, so we encourage you to check it out.

We include here part of the Ash Wednesday message they have sent out:

The traditional reasons for paying attention to Lent are for reflection, repentance, prayer, and self awareness/restraint. Beth Bevis says, “One of the goals of this season is to reveal habits or mindsets that may be preventing us from experiencing true freedom and wholeness”. Described this way, I hope that we might all find something helpful in making some space to pause, open our minds to the possible changes we may need to make in what we think or believe, inviting connection to the love that is bigger than ourselves, and attending to how we, ourselves, are getting in our way.

A prayer for Ash Wednesday ~ the first day of Lent.

Meet us Lover of our souls at this beginning.
Meet us in our anticipation of our resistance.
Meet us in our joy, exhaustion, anger, or hope.
Meet us at the point of our need.
In both the gentleness and fierceness of your love awaken us.
Spark a new alertness in us.
And give us eyes to see and ears to hear and a heart to respond to that which will enlarge liberation for ourselves and others.
Amen.

Written by Dr. Wendy VanderWal-Gritter