What breath we own is borne in dust. We sow what once was and will be to reap the harvest of our trust. What breath we own is borne in Dust laid low, made enemy, and crushed upon the contour of the Tree. What breath we own is borne in dust, we sow what once was and will be.
“If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the Lord’s holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, then you will find your joy in the Lord, and I will cause you to ride in triumph on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.” For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
They say that just beyond the gates the garden waits,
earth’s bones will bend to angel hands beneath the land,
and fountains of the deep will sing: “unleash the springs!”
While we are weeping at the sting of absent breath and hope deferred, Remember death has been interred: The garden waits beneath the land. Unleash the spring!
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
Then the pale violet light of winter’s edge flutters its wings on our table, sinking in the night, scrabbling at the hardwood ledge. We watch the fledgling falter, vanes shrinking to shafts, to ash, its tiny blades blinking back bright tears. We whet swords in its sorrow. We part chains and bear forth barrels, drinking deep with those unbound until tomorrow.
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
The angle is bent as the eye is blind;
I’ve given up hope this will reach your ears:
Forgive me, I’m just not the saving kind.
I’ve come to reject each voice in my mind,
afraid to accept the word that appears.
The angle is bent as the eye is blind.
A dangerous thing, a hope so entwined
with silence, violence, and all I revere.
Forgive me, I’m just not the saving kind.
For every day that I am refined,
I yearn to break like a heart for the spear.
The angle is bent as the eye is blind.
For every day that I fall behind,
the need burns in me to show you my fear.
Forgive me, I’m just not the saving kind.
In all I don’t know, hold me fast, defined by turning and facing a mercy severe. My angle is bent as my eye is blind: Forgive me, for I’m not the saving kind.
“Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high. Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for people to humble themselves? Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying in sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?
Our lips are fluid, quick to drink
new liquid lies. We seem to think
some presence due to humbled ones,
some missive, set with drying ink.
Our fasts are full, or so we’ve spun
out in our vaults of loaded guns
a legend told in hallowed halls,
the legends of old battles won.
A foolish skin won’t hide our fall
when all within us mutes His call,
when all within is darkened tomb
and all without is splash-white wall.
O saints who long to make Him room,
awake, lay bare your bones, exhume:
His life will wrap your frame in red,
His life will cap your crown with blooms.
Begin in darkness, lay your head upon the breast of broken Bread, upon the breast that wept and bled and drink the Wine that raised the dead.
“Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their rebellion and to the descendants of Jacob their sins. For day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God. They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them. ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?’
A Word upon Your lips may live,
but I am tired and crying out.
What drops of mercy can you give
to weary ones in dusty drought?
I am so tired of crying out
to broken people as they pass,
so weary of this dusty drought:
“All people wither like the grass.”
The broken people as they pass
adorn their brows with ash and cross.
All people wither like the grass,
all people live to know their loss.
Adore my brow of ash, O Cross, and lift my eyes up from the grave. All people here may own the loss: Divinity in dust may save.
O, lift my eyes up from my grave! A world fed from Your lips may live. Divinity through dust shall save, and drops of mercy will forgive.
A voice says, “Cry out.” And I said, “What shall I cry?”
“All people are like grass, and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.”
I was in my early 20s when I first discovered Lent. I had heard about it before, but I hadn’t thought much of it, let alone celebrated it. Now, I can’t imagine a year without this season of reflection and repentance, climaxing in Holy Week and launching us into Eastertide.
Lent is an opportunity to reflect on our weakness and need – a focus that is so antithetical to humankind’s continual quest for perfection. We come to Christ not as perfect beings, but as broken individuals. If we ever lose our understanding of how broken and needy we are, we are truly lost.
The good news of the Gospel is that Christ knows our need, takes us as we are, and transforms us by His life, death, and resurrection into new people. Every time we engage in the discipline of confession, repentance, and restoration in Him, we are preaching this Good News.
In this spirit, I offer a new Ash Wednesday prayer and five new confessions (for the five Sundays of Lent), paired with and inspired by Scripture from Lenten lectionary readings in the Book of Common Prayer. I wrote these for my own church, and they are now available to you. Until the first Sunday of Lent, they are both half-price. Here’s one of the confessions:
—
People: Father, forgive us for that which we have done and left undone,
Leader:
for wielding you as a weapon against our foes
instead of loving our enemies,
for chaining our eyes to the earth and its vanities
instead of opening our hearts to your Divine rule and reign.
for throwing our crosses aside
instead of bending our backs to their worthy weight.
You were not ashamed of us,
but took our feeble flesh upon You
and died in our place. We hesitate
to speak your name in polite conversation.
People: Lord, have mercy on us. Let your face shine again upon us.
Leader: Fill us with courage, Father, to cast off all the world offers
and take up suffering and humiliation with gladness, as those who have found
a deeper, wider joy. As we choose death daily, grant us eternal life.
People: May we speak Your Gospel in word and deed to a hungry world.
