Does anyone else feel like this Lent has taken an extra poignancy? A great many of us are essentially cloistered, reordering our lives, hyper-aware of the collective significance of our everyday practices, and actively defining what is essential. What would it look like to embrace this worldly detachment as an opportunity for new forms of service and practicing the presence of God?

This passage has also taken on an extra poignancy lately. Good writing does that – rises to the occasion. So may we all as we wait for the Risen One.

A Corner in the Old Kitchen of the Mittenheim Cloister, 1883 by T.C. Steele

This Wednesday is a long way from Ash Wednesday,
but 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 —
you 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.

We pray as we wait for the Risen One who comes soon.

– from Prayers for a Privileged People by Walter Brueggemann