Ash Wednesday and Lent

     Growing up Southern Baptist, I never really was exposed to Ash Wednesday or Lent until I began attending a United Church of Christ church. Even then, it was somewhat non-traditional.

     Ash Wednesday is traditionally representative of the dust from which we are formed, a reminder that someday we will return to dust. The UCC church I attended when I first began practicing Lent held an additional interpretation. In their tradition, we were given pieces of paper in order to write down our fears, insecurities, and wrongdoings of the previous year, and they were placed in a bowl. At a specified time during the service, they were then lit. These were the ashes which were then crossed on the forehead. The idea was to burn away our fears and insecurities and start a new beginning during the period of Lent. 

     Lent traditionally represents the 40 days Jesus Christ spent in the desert before beginning his ministry. Fish is traditionally eaten on Fridays, and Sundays "don't count" and therefore the practitioner is allowed to indulge in whatever they are fasting from. 

     The Advent season leading up to Christmas (although I primarily focus on Yule) and the Lenten season leading up to Easter (although I'm still personally grappling with the meaning of Easter for myself, as I acknowledge Ostara moreso and Easter is solely a social/family gathering holiday for me) are the only real Christian holdover practices at this point in my life. So what do Ash Wednesday and Lent mean to me, a Unitarian-Universalist Pagan?

    I resonate well with my previous church's practice of utilizing Ash Wednesday to rid oneself of guilt and insecurities of the previous year. Most of us do so on secular New Year's Eve - or at least attempt to - but by Ash Wednesday we've fallen back to old habits and ways of thinking, as well as committed new mistakes which can lead to feelings of guilt. It's a reminder that forgiveness and letting go are continual processes and active choices from day to day, rather than something that is done once and it's over. Additionally, it's always a good idea to take a break from old habits and routines, and trying to engage in healthier ways of living. Lent provides a perfect framework for doing so - it's sandwiched between easy to remember start and end points (Ash Wednesday and Easter), works in "breaks" (Sundays) so that we can have realistic goals for ourselves and not give up at the first faltering, and allows for us to have a more spiritual mindset when doing so.

   Me, I'm working on using this time to read more, write more, and find ways to study and connect with the deities whom I feel most called to. Jesus may not be one of them any more, but I'm thankful for the groundwork that the best of his followers have laid for me. 

     

Brokenness

The theme for Quest (also known as the Church of the Larger Fellowship, Unitarian Universalist) this month is brokenness. I've certainly been feeling this theme the last few weeks.

Ash Wednesday was a typically beautiful, somber service at church. As part of the service, we write on a slip of paper bad habits, stumbling blocks, shortcomings, anything we feel we need to give up during this Lent season. Then we put it all in a large bowl. The minister lit it, and allowed it to burn to ashes, which we then put on our forehead in a cross. It's very similar, actually, to some spells I've done for similar reasons, only I didn't cross myself with the ashes. It reminded me that ritual, prayer, and spellwork really are just different paths to the same end.

Last Lent season, I gave up meat one day a week - Mondays. I did well, and continued the practice as a weekly spiritual practice. This season, I'm expanding my commitment to eating vegetarian for the entire season of Lent (excluding Sundays, as is tradition in many denominations). Like last year, I am doing this to remind myself of what I put in my body, how I impact the world around me, and awareness of the inhumane practices animals often suffer through before they reach us as food. Also like last year, I am considering this a "test run" with the possibility of continuing as a full-out vegetarian after Lent, or at the very least, transitioning my Flexitarianism from "mostly omnivore with occasional vegetarian meals" to "mostly vegetarian with occasional omnivorous meals". So far so good.

I've learned this week that the Quest website now has live online services on Sundays at 7pm and 9pm, and repeating the 7pm service at 1:30pm on Monday. Today's was, as I suggested at the beginning of this post, about brokenness. It was wonderfully done, and I do believe I will watch these regularly, since my brick-and-mortar church does not have church in the evenings, only on Sunday mornings. I also plan on watching through the rest (there aren't very many yet, as they have only recently begun doing this, and even more recently begun recording them for later) to catch up.

As stated before, I've been aware of my brokenness for quite some time now. I was reminded how, as a child, I felt guilty as a Caucasian for the horrors that my culture has done to minority races and religions, from driving the Native Americans off of their land, to slavery, to fighting immigration. I'm aware of my own shortcomings, as someone who tends to put himself down a little too much, and who procrastinates, and who struggles to maintain a steady spiritual discipline.

But on the other side of brokenness, lies salvation. That which puts you back together. I'm reminded that I'm doing things to make sure I don't carry out my culture's racism, sexism, and bigotry. I have felt more aware and intentional in my actions the last couple of days, than I have since Advent. I hope to start blogging more - this time for real. Much of it culminated tonight, after my Celtic spirituality meeting, and I went to the beach for a bit of night viewing. It was one of the most beautiful night scenes I've seen. The moon was beautifully bright, the waves looked as though they were in a spotlight. It brought me to a sense of total inner peace with myself. And that, my friends, is salvation. When you have peace with yourself. And when you have peace with yourself, you also have peace with the Divine, whether you call it God, Spirit, whatever.

Lent

I've decided I'm going to attempt Lent this year.Last year, I had plans to, but did not follow through very well. This year, however, I did some brief research on Google, and came up with a few ideas.

I think that in my attempt to take Lent more seriously this year, for Lent I'm going to drink only water, limit my facebook usage to only messaging and my status updates, and use that time for deeper spiritual practice/spiritual reading, as well as being more focused on my schoolwork - namely, my daily prayers and devotional readings; perhaps the Rosary, of which I have a Gnostic version; and more consistently reading the current book for the Celtic Spirituality group, as well as Christopaganism: An Inclusive Path. 

Due to growing up Southern Baptist, I wasn't really introduced to it until I joined the United Church of Christ.  I thought of cutting out things like internet and TV, but being a student, some technology I just *can't* give up, and TV has become a big way to unwind and de-stress, although I am trying to limit the amount of TV I watch. And being kind of small, traditional practices such as fasting would be kind of bad too. Although I may try the traditional practice of not eating meat on Fridays, a practice that is commonly used to become more aware of the less fortunate who may not be able to afford such luxuries as meat. In any case, I like the idea of using Lent as a time to focus yourself, get rid of unnecessary things, or put more effort into other things you may want to do to bring more balance into life. So I'm experimenting with it a little to see how things go.

In other news, things have been a little frustrating for me lately. I'm being given even more responsibilities for my last two months at my internship - one of the houses on my caseload has been switched to another caseworker; in exchange, I now have both of the other original houses on my caseload back, in addition to the current houses, leaving me with a caseload of 6 houses and 7 kids. All of which I have to cram into two days. Which may mean my participation in the Celtic spirituality book discussion group may be spotty for the remainder of this semester. This has me frustrated, because it feels like every time I try to do something for myself, expand my social circle, improve my social life, something comes up that leaves me unable to keep it up. Along those lines, it seems that there's little likelihood that the internship will offer me a position at the end of the semester. I can understand why - my supervisor's superiors are directing their hiring efforts towards people who already have their Masters' degrees and licensures - I just wish she had been a little more professional and actually made sure with them that it would even be a possibility before bringing it up with me and getting my hopes up.

On another end, I feel like I've become lax in my spiritual practices again. I really do struggle with self-discipline. I wonder sometimes if there's such a thing as a "lapsed" or "non-practicing" Druid, the same way one might be a "lapsed" or "non-practicing" Christian, Jew, etc. I don't get to go out in nature much, I have trouble with meditation, I barely remember the last time I've performed a spell. I feel like I've been so consumed with the non-spiritual/non-magickal aspects of life, that I'm almost right back to "Druidry 101" in those things - struggling with how and where to start, wondering if performing spellwork sporadically(as opposed to on a regular basis) makes one "less of a Druid", and for that matter, how to decide which life situations warrant a spell as opposed to solely mundane methods. And for that matter, how connected to nature can someone be, if they never seem to have time to actually go out in it? How can one claim to follow an "earth-centered spirituality", if they're never, well, around earth?

Speaking of nature, the one positive thing going on right now is that I'm on Spring Break from school and internship. Since I make my own schedule for my paid job, I am taking off of work as well. If the weather is cooperative, I hope to go to the beach and/or a couple of local nature preserves within the next couple of days. The week is going way too fast.