Dear One's of St. Columba's,

At the beginning of February I wrote to you all about the church seasons and the marking of time. I encouraged you to seek out ways that the church seasons can give us a shared knowing of time and help us to invite God and our community into these days that make up our lives.  Next week, we will mark Ash Wednesday together and receive the imposition of ashes.  We will remember our mortality and that we are dust and to dust we shall return.  This is such a beautiful and difficult opportunity that our church offers to us.  Many of us can say that we have had these thoughts before, but often it is fleeting and often we are alone.  Our church and the season of Lent offers us a place to come together and face these somber truths.  And this season asks us, not to run away from them or bear them alone.  But together we look at our own mortality and we ask God and each other what this means for how we will live.  Lent is a time of year that we learn how to live in the desert.  We learn how to be uncomfortable and what it means to welcome the harsher conditions that comes with desert life.   We acknowledge the ways we have been tempted by things that are not of God.  We acknowledge our mortality, our suffering, and the ways we, as individuals, and as a people have caused suffering.  We come before God and ask for forgiveness because it is only when we acknowledge all of these somber truths that we can know the depth of God’s grace, mercy and love for us.

As we enter Lent on Wednesday my only request is that you would acknowledge and begin with your goodness.  You are made in the image of God and you are God’s beloved.  And with that knowing, this coming Ash Wednesday is an opportunity to sit with your community so that we can face our mortality together, look at where we have failed one another, and to find together the grace and love that comes from God who loves us beyond measure.  This God that invites us to offer this grace and love to all those that we encounter.    

I hope that you will also continue in this Lenten journey with us on Wednesday nights throughout Lent.  We will have a chance to have a simple soup supper with one another, share in the Eucharist, and learn more about what our Christian faith has to say to us about who we are and how we can live in the world as beloved children of God.

With care, 

Meghan