{"id":42,"date":"2014-03-16T16:58:11","date_gmt":"2014-03-16T23:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/?p=42"},"modified":"2014-03-30T20:26:21","modified_gmt":"2014-03-31T03:26:21","slug":"ash-wednesday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/?p=42","title":{"rendered":"ash wednesday"},"content":{"rendered":"

returning to love and hope and understanding<\/a><\/h2>\n
Originally Posted on March 5, 2014<\/div>\n
TwoOrThreeLittleBirds.com<\/a><\/div>\n

\"lentenhand\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Return to me with your whole heart,
\nwith fasting, and weeping, and mourning;
\nRend your hearts, not your garments,
\nand return to the LORD, your God.<\/em>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

~ Joel 2:12<\/p>\n

How will you make way for your<\/em> return?\u00a0 Are you giving something up?\u00a0 Are you adding something in?\u00a0 Will you weep and mourn?\u00a0 Most likely.\u00a0 Will you gaze outward, reach upward, maybe look within?\u00a0 What can you do this Lent to truly transform your heart and not just change your garments?<\/p>\n

Today marks the beginning of Lent with Ash Wednesday, and a good indicator of my willingness to return to God with my whole heart is just how many hurdles I have to jump over to get to mass!\u00a0 Sheesh.\u00a0 Littlest will go with her school in the morning, but since my students are in the middle of a writing cycle and need me in class, I will miss that opportunity and the noontime masses in my area.\u00a0 The Catholic church I belong to has a beautiful ecumenical (non-denominational) service in the evening but will not offer communion.\u00a0 The church down the street from that?\u00a0 Well, in anticipation of my semi-annual trip to the confessional, I\u2019ll be nice here and just say that\u2019s not even an option.\u00a0 My afternoon will consist of schlepping an hour home from work, taxiing biggest from the bus stop to dance, and then making my way in rush hour traffic across town to a church I\u2019ve been to exactly once so I can sing and pray and receive my ashes.\u00a0 Who in God\u2019s name does this?\u00a0 Isn\u2019t it easier to throw ones hands in the air in OH WELL <\/em>and succumb to the schedule like everyone else?\u00a0 I mean, who has been known to drive two and half hours for good church?!\u00a0 Do you know anyone, I mean, anyone . . . besides me?<\/p>\n

At some point on this blog I contemplated this gravitational pull some of us nuts have toward church.\u00a0 Why do we go?\u00a0 What is it that happens there?\u00a0 And more importantly, why is what happens there so vital to our being?\u00a0 Here\u2019s what I had to say,<\/p>\n

I\u2019m thinking today about my friends and companions and what draws us to one another.\u00a0 Prompted to delve deeply into my own philosophy on faith by a priest friend who posited these questions on his blog<\/a> yesterday, what are you hungry for when you go to church?\u00a0 What happens there that satisfies you? <\/em>I couldn\u2019t easily answer in a quick reply.\u00a0 This is a huge question for me because I am not a rote attendee\u2013I have made a conscious decision to live a spiritual life and I don\u2019t go just because it\u2019s what I\u2019ve always done.There is something there that stirs grace within me and helps me go out into the world with a deep sense of gratitude and joy, a sense of peace and hope that then spills over into the lives of others I encounter along the way.\u00a0 What is that something?\u00a0 Well I could easily identify the tangible poetry of church: the music, the visual beauty in stained glass or marble or oil and canvas, the words strung together in a song that speaks to me.\u00a0 But I think there is something intangible and much more visceral that draws us in.<\/p>\n

In the gospel readings<\/a> . . . Jesus and his disciples multiply loaves and fishes and feed the multitudes gathered around their table, hungry for wisdom, healing and affirmation. \u00a0 They are drawn into community around this single most ancient drive for fellowship.\u00a0 What brings them there?\u00a0 This is the beauty of our human story because while I think we all come from a place of misery at some level\u2013whether that misery is true cosmic pain, physical discomfort or doubt and insecurity\u2013we arrive in this place of glorious hope . . . once we are together, gathered around a table.\u00a0 It often seems as if we are in a deserted place, with cruel destruction brought about by natural and man made disasters, and to overcome such devastation, we reach out for the hands of those around us and simply hold on.\u00a0 That spirit moving within us, the spirit that leads us to one another, I believe, is love and hope and understanding.<\/p>\n

~ Rebecca Board Liljenstolpe, \u201cFor We are In a Deserted Place Here<\/a>\u201c<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

returning to love and hope and understanding Originally Posted on March 5, 2014 TwoOrThreeLittleBirds.com Return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the LORD, your God. ~ Joel 2:12 How will you make way for your return?\u00a0 Are you giving something … Continue reading ash wednesday<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,5,2,17,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grace","category-joy","category-lent","category-peace","category-spirituality"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86,"href":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions\/86"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}