Studies on Ashes

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The Origin of the Imposition of Ashes

Author

Keywords

Scripture

Joel 2:12-13, Romans 3:20-26, Job 42:5-6, Ezekiel 9:4, Genesis 2:7, Ecclesiastes 3:20

The imposition of ashes, now a familiar Ash Wednesday tradition in Catholic, Anglican, and many Protestant churches, has its roots in an early church penitential practice. For people who had been excl...

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Just a stain in the soil

Author

William Rowley

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 3:19, Ecclesiastes 3:20, Genesis 18:27, James 4:14, Psalm 90:12, Psalm 39:4, 1 Peter 2:24-25, Psalm 90:10, Psalm 78:39, 1 Chronicles 29:15, Psalm 39:5, Psalm 144:4, Job 14:1, Psalm 103:15-16, Job 7:6-7, Genesis 2:7

I love a British TV show called Time Team. Hosted by Tony Robinson, a team of archeologists descend on a site in Britain and excavate for three days. Inevitably, the archeologists unearth the dead...

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The Roots of Ash Wednesday

Author

Beth Bevis

Keywords

Scripture

Joel 2:12-13, Romans 3:20-26, Job 42:5-6, Ezekiel 9:4, Genesis 2:7, Ecclesiastes 3:20

Since the seventh century, the Western church has observed the start of Lent on Ash Wednesday—the fortieth day before Easter, not counting Sundays. In addition to providing ample time for self-examina...

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Identifying Christians

Author

Kerry Weber

Keywords

On the whole, though, Catholics (and Protestants) aren’t identifiable at first glance. Yet, on Ash Wednesday I’m always surprised by the number of people I see on the streets and in the subways sporti...

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Death and Life in Your Hands

Author

Harold L. Senkbe

Keywords

Let’s call her Roberta; she was clearly near the end of a very long journey toward death’s door. Roberta’s cancer was a particularly nasty variety; by now it had eaten its way into most of her vital o...

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Pushed to the Brink of Destruction

Author

James A. Knight

Keywords

Scripture

Hebrews 12:12-13, Psalm 147:3, Romans 8:28, Isaiah 61:1, 1 Peter 5:10

Psychiatrist James Knight describes in graphic detail the experience that members of Alcoholics Anonymous experience: These persons have had their lives laid bare and pushed to the brink of destructi...

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Frozen in Greed

Author

Clovis G. Chappell

Keywords

In his book Feminine Faces, Clovis Chappell wrote that when the Roman city of Pompeii was being excavated, the body of a woman was found mummified by the volcanic ashes of Mount Vesuvius. Her position...

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Comfort Through Lament

Author

Steven Marsh

Keywords

On June 22, 2007, a hit-and-run incident left Daniel McConchie paralyzed from the waist down. McConchie states, “God has not healed my affliction, but he has taught me the power of lamenting to him ab...

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In 1918, a chemical-fueled fire destroyed

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 43:19, Job 1:21 , Lamentations 3:22-23, Romans 8:28 , James 1:2-3 , Psalm 30:5

In 1918, a chemical-fueled fire destroyed the inventor Thomas Edison’s factory in West Orange, New Jersey.. The flames consumed much of his life’s work, causing over two million dollars in damage. Yet...

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What’s in a Name?

Author

Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy

Keywords

What’s in a name? The history of the human race is in names. Our objective friends do not understand that, since they move in a world of objects which can be counted and numbered. They reduce the grea...

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Two Contexts for Worship

Author

Mike Cosper

Keywords

Worship

Scripture

Hebrews 4:16, Romans 8:15, John 7:37

Participating in God’s glory-sharing life, then, happens in two contexts: scattered and gathered. Worship scattered is the Spirit-filled life of the Christian in the world, and worship gathered is the...

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Who are we?

Author

Jean Bethke Elshtain

Keywords

Scripture

James 4:6, Mark 8:36, 1 John 2:17, 1 Corinthians 4:7, Jeremiah 9:23-24, Revelation 3:17

Who, then, are we, we prideful late-twentieth-century creatures? Lord knows, we no longer think of ourselves as belonging to anyone or anything. We do not belong – we own; we possess. And that, to say...

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Ted Turner Losing His Religion

Author

Andy Cook

Keywords

Scripture

Revelation 21:4, 1 Peter 5:7, John 16:33, Romans 8:28, Psalm 34:18

Ted Turner. He is 71 years old (written in 2014), and still in the news. With a net worth estimated around $2.3 billion, Turner has made an impact on cable television, news reporting, and major league...

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Image and Dust

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:null, Genesis 2:null

Our defining narrative says that we’re made “in the image of God,”[i] but also: we’re made “from the dust.”[ii] Image and dust. To be made in the image of God means that we’re rife with potential. W...

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Hearing the Confessions of the Poor

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

John 13:14-15, James 2:13, Isaiah 58:7, Matthew 5:3, Psalm 34:18, Luke 7:47-48

Angela’s Ashes took the publishing world by storm when it was released in September 1996. It won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize in the category of Biography/Autobiography. It was also a...

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We Are Dust

Author

Luke A. Powery

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 3:19, Psalm 103:14, Job 42:5-6, Joel 2:12-13, Hebrews 12:1-3, Romans 3:20-26, Ecclesiastes 3:20

At the beginning of this season of Lent, on this Ash Wednesday, we are reminded that we are dust and to dust we will return. We are reminded of human fragility and failure. We are reminded that we are...

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“Does My Ash Look All Right?”

Author

Tish Harrison Warren

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 3:19, Job 42:5-6, Ezekiel 9:4, Genesis 2:7, Ecclesiastes 3:20, Daniel 9:3

One Ash Wednesday a decade ago, when I was new to Anglicanism, I knelt at a rail as Fr. Thomas, my priest, smeared a black cross on each forehead. “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall ret...

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Ash Wednesday & A Public Faith

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Joel 2:12-13, Romans 3:20-26, Job 42:5-6, Ezekiel 9:4, Genesis 2:7, Ecclesiastes 3:20

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always enjoyed the public nature of Ash Wednesday. That is to say, what happens when we leave an Ash Wednesday service and there is the sign of the cross, for all who ...

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Two Notes in your Pockets

Author

Catherine Quehl-Engel

Keywords

I’m reminded of something a rabbi said that stuck with me the past 20 years. This rabbi—she said how on the life journey we need to carry in our pockets two reminder notes. In one pocket the reminder...

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The Asher Yatzar

Author

Tish Harrison Warren

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 139:13-14, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, 1 Timothy 4:4-5, Colossians 3:17, Romans 12:1-2, Ephesians 5:29

Judaism has a prayer called the Asher Yatzar that is often recited after using the bathroom, a prayer grounded in the very real needs of our bodies. At first, some of us might blush over the idea of G...

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A Trench in the Ground

Author

Wendell Berry

Keywords

At start of spring I open a trench in the ground. I put into it the winter’s accumulation of paper, pages I do not want to read. Again, useless words, fragments, errors. And I put into it the contents...

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“But I Don’t Want to Die”

Author

Mark D. Roberts

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 3:19, Romans 6:23

My friend Tim is a manager of a small company. Because he often hires people for their first full-time job, he gets to tell new employees about their benefits. One time, Tim was trying to explain to a...

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You’ve Brought Pavement?

Author

Ben Witherington III

Keywords

Perhaps you’ve heard the humorous story about a man who was about to die so he liquidated all his assets, turning them into gold bricks. He required his family to pack the bricks in two suitcases and ...

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Clearing the Path to Grace

Author

Richard J. Foster

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 1:18, Ezekiel 36:26 , Micah 7:18-19 , 1 John 1:9, Luke 15:20-24, Psalm 51:10

To help us in our confession we may want to picture a path littered with many rocks. Some are small pebbles, others are quite large, and still others are almost completely buried so that we cannot kno...

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Curse The Shortness of Life

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 6:20-21, Proverbs 27:2, Luke 14:7-14, Psalm 90:10-14, James 4:13-17, Psalm 39:4-5

The politician Helen Violet Asquith (later Bonham Carter) was once attending a dinner with Winston Churchill, who initially seemed lost in abstraction for an awkwardly long period of time. Abruptly he...

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All the Succession of Time

Author

Jeremy Taylor

Keywords

All the succession of time, all the changes in nature, all the varieties of light and darkness, the thousand thousands of accidents in the world, and every contingency to every one, preaches our funer...

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The Arrogant General

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Proverbs 27:2, Matthew 6:1-4, Ecclesiastes 1:14, Luke 18:9-14, James 4:14, Isaiah 14:12-15, Daniel 4:28-37, Luke 18:9-14, James 4:6, Obadiah 1:3-4

Abraham Lincoln’s sharp wit often surfaced, even in serious moments. At the funeral of a talented but overly vain Army General during the Civil War, Lincoln observed the large crowd that had gathered....

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“FIRE”

Author

Calvin Miller

Keywords

We must journey to the edge of heat if we would catch the flame. When Blaise Pascal died in 1662, his servant found a scrap of paper hidden in the lining of his coat. It turned out to be a testimony o...

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Throwing Away Valuable Resources

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 42:, Philippians 3:13-14, 2 Corinthians 5:17, 2 Corinthians 11:24-30

In many parts of the country, leaf clean-up is an annual chore. They fall from the trees, blanket our lawns, and we often bag them up and toss them out (or burn them). There’s a lesson in this… In my...

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The Plane Crash

Author

John Piper

Keywords

Picture 269 people entering eternity in a plane crash in the Sea of Japan. Before the crash there is a noted politician, a millionaire corporate executive, a playboy and his playmate, a missionary kid...

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