Ash wednesday – Aspirational Adventures

Pondering walk by the river in the sunshine

Today is Clean Monday which Christine Sine explores a bit of in her post Meditation Monday for today. This is a festival in the Christian Orthodox Church, a public holiday in Greece, for people to prepare for Lent.

In the Western Protestant Church we often wait until we are in the 40 days of Lent which starts on Wednesday with Ash Wednesday, before we start the business of trying to find time to set our hearts towards God. I like the idea of having whole day beforehand, before even Shrove Tuesday, which was the day for eating the last of the winter’s rich foods before the Lenten fast. So even before celebrating and preparing the Orthodox Church was clearing out.

I like the idea of clearing out firstly before celebrating and feasting and then moving into fasting and connecting. For me this means keeping my heart right and working on the whole forgiveness things, the whole “clean hands and clean heart” and of creeping closer to God in the way that works for me.

In Christine’s blog she says that “because Orthodox celebrations still follow the Julian calendar rather than the Georgian calendar we are familiar with, this year Clean Monday is on February 27th as Eastern Orthodox Ash Wednesday is March 1st.”

I rather like that Clean Monday comes on 27th February. That is the day of my friend’s funeral. It feels, for me, like that will be a time to clear out some stuff inside of me to do with her, to do with what she represented in my life, and move onwards in a different way.

With all the friends I have each fill a different niche, each have different “functions” in my life. For my friend Tessa that we cremate next Monday the part she filled in my life cannot be filled by another and that’s ok. I have been feeling over the last week that what she filled doesn’t need filling any more, that even before she died the time had come for me not to have that need in my life. But now that she has really gone I have been having to clear out that need. So for me, with my heart, I think Monday 27th will definitely be a Clean Monday for me.

[Watch out for another post tomorrow about Clean Monday which is being posted on http://www.godspacelight.com and I will put up on here]

Who Guides Our Priorities?

Photo taken by Diane Woodrow at end of Feb 2022 Taken whilst she was walking on a Saturday morning with her dog — Morfa Conwy Feb 2022

How often have you wondered who guides what you priorities? What you focus on? What you worry most about?

Today there is much talk across the Christian community of Ash Wednesday being a day of prayer for Ukraine, which is great. It really is. But what about the other things? But if I dig a bit on various news-feeds I read about ethnic inequalities, massive inflation across the world, there is still a climate crisis, there are still people being persecuted in Afghanistan, Nigeria, Myanmar, and still people dying from Covid across the world. But it is hard to find out any other news.

I remember back in September 2011 when the twin towers were destroyed and all focus on was on them. A friend who worked with orphans in Africa said more children had died of starvation and AIDS in one day than had died in the twin towers. Or when Princess Diana was killed in a car accident the pastor of the church I was attending at that time asking us to pray for all the other people who had died in car accidents that night who would be lost under the media coverage of her death.

Don’t get me wrong, I do think this situation in Ukraine is awful as was the Twin Towers disaster, but I do think too often we then forget other things. We forget had forgotten that there had been Russian oppression in parts of Ukraine for over 10 years because the media got bored and turned us to other things. We get bored of hearing the same thing day in day out.

We are fickle human beings and, I believe, more so now with 24 hour news, internet access, etc. I think too that if this conflict in Ukraine hits a point where there are no big headlines we will move on to something else.

Is it that we don’t care? I don’t believe that at all. But I do think it is because when we are bombarded with news and information day in day out our brains cannot cope so we shut off. And then the media needs to keep us watching the news, reading papers, scrolling through the internet, because they earn money that way. So they will find us the next thing to be drawn into, the next thing to worry about, the next thing that we give our money to.

This isn’t wrong but it is just the way it is. Can we change? Maybe this is about again looking at aligning with God, with the Universe and fixing on that and being willing to go for whatever we are called to for the long haul – which is hard.

Are you, am I, willing to take time out and find out what my true focus is or am I, are you, going to be swayed by the winds of the world?

⁵If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. ⁶But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. ⁷That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.
James 1:5-7