Ash Wednesday
“Come away with me. Let us go alone to a quiet place and rest for a while.” Mark 6:31
Lent is a season of withdrawing from the noise and finding refuge in God’s presence, It is not a religious requirement but rather a resetting of our daily rhythms to align our lives and hearts to beat more closely in time with God’s. It’s a season of being mindful about taking refuge in the stillness of his presence. Lent is intended to interrupt our self-focused habits and is often paired with fasting or giving up something. It’s a time of repentance of the ways we’ve allowed our priorities to take precedence over God’s will for us. We’ve been lulled to sleep by the industrialized, efficiency driven algorithms of the world. When we disrupt these numbing algorithms we’ve fallen prey to, like new growth emerging in spring, our senses awaken and come alive to the wonder filled rhythms of the One leading us closer to Him. Lent translates to mean “spring time.” Over the next 6 weeks, we will meditate on rhythms of restoration by contemplating the parallel metaphors of a garden emerging from winter and being prepared for spring. Through poetry, movement meditation, prayerful prompts, and imagery, we will retreat into a time of rest and renewal.
Something transformative takes place when we are intentional about adding silence back into our lives through the spiritual practice of retreat. When we allow our routines to be interrupted by carving out space for calm and quiet, then we make room for more of Christ to dwell within us. Each week invites you into several creative practices. You may choose to engage in all of them or focus on one creative element at a time. The movement meditation may be the most unfamiliar to you but Christ came to show us that love has a body and our body is a part of our spiritual formation. Each week will include a short embodied prayer video that will focus on one word drawn from the devotional reading. You may watch it as many times as you like and please be encouraged to embody some of the movement yourself for your own prayer practice. Vivid Artistry Dance Co. members will be filming movement in the same location outdoors each week as we journey from the restorative rest of winter to the resurrection of spring.
This Lenten devotional is meant to lead our whole selves to the rest that Jesus invites us into. May our weekly reflection help us re-order our rhythms to fall more closely in step with the rhythms of God’s restful and restorative ways. Just like the soil awakens from its restorative rest in winter, I pray the slow art of attentiveness and embodied prayer will renew us to sense God’s presence this Lenten season.
Guided Journal Prompts: focus on the mystery and shadowed images of the art work as you journal your thoughts and prayers to the questions
What rhythms in my life need to be interrupted and reset for God’s rhythms to inhabit more of my life?
What new rhythm could I integrate into my day that would help me meditate and attune my senses to more of God’s presence?
Am I bringing my whole self to God or do I segment and divide parts of my life from my faith?
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)
I encourage you to carve out a physical space wherever you are that’s dedicated to be your meeting place with God for these next 6 weeks. I believe you’ll discover the significance in the habit of returning to the same space for prayer and reflection just like having coffee with a friend at a regular meeting spot. The space becomes familiar and sacred and that familiarity softens our hearts to allow for deeper work. Like a garden plot is fixed and we return to it daily to tend to each stage of it’s preparation, return to the same plot of space to tend to the preparation of your heart in this season of renewal.
