Life on Planet Earth on Ashes

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The Origin of the Imposition of Ashes

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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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Author

Esau McCaulley

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 6:1-21, Matthew 5:16, Luke 6:20-21, Matthew 25:34-36, Mark 12:41-44

Yes, we mark our heads with ashes—public shows of piety are not in themselves evil. But we must guard our motivations and do most of our spiritual work in private, because the privacy of those acts re...

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Author

Thomas Cranmer

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In the midst of life we are in death, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection.

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Author

Elisabeth Elliot

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We want to avoid suffering, death, sin, ashes. But we live in a world crushed and broken and torn, a world God Himself visited to redeem. We receive his poured-out life, and being allowed the high pri...

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On Aging, Ash Wednesday, and Death

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Do you remember the first time you started to feel your mortality? Or perhaps, the first time you realized their was something wrong with your body? Your mind? At some point (for me it was my twenties...

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Author

Stephen De Staebler

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Clay can be a metaphor for many things. I made it a metaphor for flesh and earth, and these are two kinds of generic givens of life, if you look at it poetically, biblically, the idea of the life of b...

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Author

Mark Scandrette

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In ancient cultures, people knew how to mourn. They tore their clothes. They poured ashes on their heads. They sat in the dirt and raised their voices in lament.

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Author

J. R. R. Tolkein

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All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light fro...

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Author

Arlie Russell Hochschild

Keywords

Scripture

Ephesians 6:1-4, Deuteronomy 6:1-9, 1 Timothy 5:8

The family has long been a haven in a heartless world, the one place immune to market forces and economic calculations, where the personal, the private, and the emotional hold sway. Yet. . . that is ...

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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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Adapted from Job 40:1-2, 4-8; 42:1-6

Author

Dustin Ray

Keywords

Scripture

Job 40:1-8, Job 42:1-6

Pastor: And the LORD said to Job: “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it.” All: Then Job answered the LORD and said: “Behold, I am of small account...

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How great and glorious You are, O God.

Author

Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church

Keywords

How great and glorious You are, O God. There is no one like You. You transform our weakness into strength. You forgive our stubbornness and arrogance, and fill us with Your generous wisdom. You turn o...

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Author

Annie Dillard

Keywords

The impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.

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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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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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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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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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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...

liturgy

Adapted from Genesis 3:19, Matthew 24:36

Author

Austin D. Hill

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 3:19, Matthew 24:36

For you are dust, And to dust you shall return. But concerning that day and hour No one knows. Not even the angels in heaven, Nor the Son, but only the Father. Lord of all, we submit ours...

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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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Author

Vernon Kane

Keywords

We all came from dust and to dust we shall return. Even the greatest and the richest people of this generation will be soon forgotten. Let us focus completely on God almighty.

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Author

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Keywords

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.

liturgy

Adapted from Psalm 90 (3)

Author

Austin D. Hill

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 90:1-4

Leader: Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. All: Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you a...

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