Ash Wednesday — Vivid Artistry

Receive the Ashes

What has burned will be made new

Hope from the ground up

Lent is the 40 days observed from Ash Wednesday to Easter. It is a season carved out on the church calendar to meditate and reflect on the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness before his public ministry began. It breaks through ordinary time and invites us on a journey of stripping away the excess, quieting the distractions, and instead, leading us onto a path of repentance and renewal.

Lent translates to mean “spring time.” Over the next 6 weeks, we will journey towards renewal by contemplating the parallel metaphors of a garden emerging from winter and being prepared for spring. This Lenten journey is designed to be an intentional time of spiritual practices that lead us to surrendering our schedule, deepening our listening, and awakening our hearts to what God wants to renew within us. Through poetry, art, movement meditations, and prayerful prompts, we will press into the wilderness of our souls with our hearts postured toward surrender to what God wants to reveal to us.

As we begin with the ashes, we recognize them as a symbol of a burning up of what once was. But in the deeper wisdom of our creative God, the ashes left after a refining fire becomes itself the fertilizer for new growth.

The ashes placed upon our foreheads also remind us that the journey may get uncomfortable. Throughout these next 6 weeks we will be tending to the soil of our souls and allowing the Master Gardener to uncover, till, excavate, cultivate, prune, and prepare us for new growth to emerge. What is it he wants to prepare you for? How is he calling you out of a wintering season? What is he calling forth in you to bloom?

Every reading invites you into several creative practices. You may choose to engage in all of them or focus on one element at a time. Each will also include a short embodied prayer video. Christ came to show us that love has a body and our body is a part of our spiritual formation. You may watch it as many times as you like and be encouraged to try some of the movement yourself for your own embodied prayer practice. Have an expectant heart that Jesus will lead you and meet you in this Lent season. May these weekly practices not be a box to check but places of encounter through the slow art of attentiveness.

Scripture Meditation:

Romans 12:1-2 - “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.” (The Message translation)

Guided Journal Prompts: contemplate the hidden and emerging images on the art piece below as you journal in response to the questions.

What is something in my life I am seeking for God to renew and restore?
What rhythms in my life need to be interrupted and reoriented to God’s heart for me?
What are some ways I can surrender my schedule to help attune my senses to more of God’s presence?
Am I bringing my whole self to God or do I divide and keep parts of my life from Him?

Please Take Directions by artist Natalie Salminen Rude

Art work by Natalie Salminen Rude

https://nataliesalminen.com

Used with permission. May not be duplicated or copied

Haiku poem by Libby Johnson

Header Photo by Heye Jensen on Unsplash