Monday Manna

We can show a different way...

If you are new to Monday Manna, I’m so glad you are here. My prayer with this little pause on Monday mornings is to offer some nourishment (“manna”) for you — via my reflection, prayer, and painting — as you are nourishing the world around you. Together, we are watching for the ways God is with us and for us as we take one day at a time….

Thanks to Carrie Newcomer who coined this mantra I made into a recent art piece — “Love is still the greatest power. I call forth love in me. I call forth love in all things.” A good one to put on a sticky note and place on your mirror.

Good morning, friends, and deep peace and comfort to you this week…

Last Wednesday, our tiny (and frigid!) chapel at church was packed full. It was our Ash Wednesday service, and people of all ages had come to mark our mortality and embrace again the call to follow Jesus.

A low table was set in the center of the space holding communion challah bread and juice in a chalice. A crowd of children encircled the table, some sitting on the floor cushions, some leaning and placing all their weight onto the table, peering into the cup. “When is it time for the food?!” a bright, beautiful, and blue-eyed four-year-old asked.

Surrounding the youngest disciples were concentric circles of chairs spanning everyone from teens to those in their eighties. After sharing communion together, our two pastors dipped their fingers into small containers of black ash, marked our foreheads, and reminded us, “from dust you came, to dust you will return, and God goes with you….”

I’ve thought a lot about how we are made from the ash of the earth, and write about this in the introduction to my book, Ash and Starlight: Prayers for the Chaos and Grace of Daily Life. I describe how we are made from the ash of the earth, but also infused with God’s divine breath…a power which made the stars far beyond us.

The reality, though, is the ash is in and of itself literal stardust. As I’ve been reading Christine Valter Paintner’s profound book, A Different Kind of Fast: Feeding Our True Hungers In Lent, she lifted up the studies of Astrophysicist Karel Schrijver and his wife, Iris, a medical doctor specializing in genetics, who found that, “Our bodies are made of burned-out embers of stars that were released into the galaxy in massive explosions long before gravity pulled them together to form the Earth…we are stardust in a very literal sense. Every object in the wider universe, everything around us, and everything we are, originated from stardust.”*

And what is also true is that it was stars dying — releasing their light, giving away all the matter making them what they were — that produced new life. Life and death completely interwoven in the fabric of the universe. I want to copy the pastors I heard of this year who mix their ashes with glitter at Ash Wednesday services as a way to embody this beautiful, seeming-paradox.

I will speak for myself that Lent just feels different this year — more real, resonant, and weighty. In this time when so much feels uncertain, when there’s so much we don’t know, when the direction of our country and the world are harrowing, the image of an intergenerational community gathered, counter-culturally surrendering and recommitting their lives to Jesus’ way, made me cry. There were tears in my eyes last week as I looked at the room full of people — young and old — crowded together, closing their eyes as a cross was made on their foreheads…an act befriending “Sister Death” (as St. Francis says), and welcoming the frailty, precarity, and brevity of our lives in world that believes death is the enemy.

While the cultural limelight right now focuses on those who brandish power in damaging and individualistic ways, there are still countless people coming together who are following Jesus’ upside-down way, saying, “we don’t depend ourselves. We choose a different way.”

Those who lose their lives, will save them….

My partner, Jeff, and I have a phrase we often remind each other of, and that is, “we can show a different way.” And that is, I think what Lent is about, especially now. As we walk toward Easter, we can claim our origin as stardust, releasing and expanding into new life by giving ourselves over. I want to end with Jeff’s words to our church this week in his written reflection about Ash Wednesday. He wrote,

“As I mentioned in my sermon last Sunday, it’s so crucial for us to be the church right now, to “let all [we] do be done in love,” as Paul charged the tiny church in Corinth in the mid-50s AD. That’s how we try to respond every day – welcoming what’s here and responding with love, fighting back with beauty, with tenderness, with belonging, remembering that the best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better. Showing hospitality to strangers. Practicing forgiveness. Speaking the truth in love. Loving our neighbors. Loving our enemies. Experiencing awe and wonder. Praying for our government. Discovering moments of joy and laughter. Leaning into waves of sadness and grief when they arrive unannounced – they too have wisdom to share. Trusting the process. Avoiding judgment of people, including ourselves. Looking out for the kingdom of God – it’s emerging all around us, when we have eyes to see it – often found in smallness, patience, humility, inner wisdom, and risk-taking.”**

Let’s embrace and show a different way.

**Jeff’s full reflection can be read here.

My son, Simon, helped decorate my current journal. At first, I put some sticky wrap over the cover to keep the glitter from going everywhere. But as it started to peel off, and in light of last week, I’ve embraced the trail of glitter being left around the house, and am grateful for how it’s become a sacred reminder.

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A Prayer

This prayer, from my book, Ash and Starlight: Prayers for the Chaos and Grace of Daily Life, Second Edition, is one I return to each year at the start of Lent. Jesus walks with, supports, and will guide us on the path…

***

For Lent

Redeeming One,

You came, Jesus, to show me the

best way to live and walk this path.

You let yourself feel the depth

of need surrounding you.

You kept a purity of focus.

You always, always chose love.

All with bravery and trust.

I need you, Jesus, to walk

beside me now,

helping me reflect,

confess, prepare…

This Lenten path puts before me

the questions and realizations

I so often stuff away.

With each step, I’m recognizing

barriers built through my

rote habits and unrealized prejudices,

my baseline grudges and routine neglects…

I must acknowledge compromises

that drew me further away

from my own soul and your calling.

But, I’m coming back home.

Hone my desires to that

pure focus you held.

Help me fast from self-absorption,

finding my sustenance in the

rich profundity of suffering-love.

118Draw my heart and feet forward

on this path that’s both total mystery

and innate to who I am in you.

A minor melody marks our cadence,

yet you tune my ears for more than that.

Resurrection is always the final number.

Help me walk, Savior Lord,

with hope amid heaviness,

ears to the ground.

I will welcome my mortality

and the potential in ashes and dust.

Amen.

Psalm 51:17 * Isaiah 53:4–6 * Luke 9:23–24

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny them-

selves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”

—Luke 9:23

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Something that nourished me recently…

*Returning to Christine Valter Paintner’s beautiful book, one of her suggestions for Lent is creating a simple altar space in which to pray, serving as a physical marker of the season and our intentions to press into God afresh. I encourage you to create your own! As Christine says, it can be a windowsill or small table, the corner of a desk (which is what I did), or even something that’s movable in a small box. What symbols would help you connect to Lent this year? You can add as the weeks continue. Here are a few of mine…

*As I’ve been preparing for my art show and an online art shop, my talented artist friend, Olga, encouraged me to delve into bigger paper. I’ve loved the freedom, space, and challenge of more space, and have made some 18x24 pieces. Here are a couple…

I think this is one of my life mottos…also, Monet is one of my favorite artists.

The inspiration for this was thinking of the quilting of our lives, and how God brings all the pieces together in a beautiful tapestry….

*And on the art theme, it was art awareness day at school last week, and I got to help my son’s second grade class with their bird masks. 😂

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Ash and Starlight, plus other good things…

*SECOND EDITION OF ASH AND STARLIGHT ~ Find the updated edition of my book here at Chalice or at the Amazon link!

*MONDAY MANNA ARCHIVES ~ You can view previous Substack Monday Manna reflections as a paid subscriber here, or for the really old stuff, go to my website.

*WHAT DOES MANNA MEAN? ~ Check out an earlier post to learn how this little bit of “daily bread” got its name…

*LENT RESOURCES ~ In addition to the Christine Valters Paintner book which I am delving into this Lent, and the Illustrated Ministry Resources which I’ve mentioned before, I highly recommend

Traci Smith

’s Lenten kid-friendly Calendar with a beautiful prompt for each day (these don’t take extra time! They simply bring intentionality and depth to your day and can be found here), as well as

Edward Goode

and his brand new book, Ordinary Benchmarks. It is not a Lenten book, per se, but would fit perfectly in this season. Also, Ed is offering very meaningful daily devotions on the Psalms right now through his substack,

Imago Scriptura

, and I am ALWAYS nourished by it. Beautiful writing paired with his breath-taking photography. Check it out here.

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I’ll be back next week with some thoughts on Women’s History Month (hooray!) and a brand new prayer in celebration of that. In the meantime, deep love to you, friends, as we begin Lent. My prayers are with you as we choose and show a different way. 💜

Love and Light,

Arianne

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