Tag: church

Season Two: How Do We Reengage?

Donna Joy

Like little flowers poking through cement, there are signs of life peeking out all around me after what has felt like a very long cold lonely winter, literally and metaphorically.

Vaccinations are increasing, restrictions are lifting, and people are testing out various ways of engaging in social activities. 

There have been a lot of things I’ve relished through this passing season of isolation.

I’ve enjoyed beginning friendships with people around the world I likely never would have engaged with if I was caught up in my in-person life a few years ago.

I’ve loved the variety of online churches, podcasts, and blogs I’ve been able to seek out. 

I’ve loved gathering around the table, sharing a meal with my family during a service or event.

I’ve loved being able to pause videos and discuss questions or look up references, rewinding to get a second listen to something I missed or didn’t understand. 

I LOVE that I can’t remember how long it’s been since I stood awkwardly through an in-person church “Meet and Greet” moment in the middle of a service.

Quarantine has been a really good excuse not to participate in uncomfortable things.

It can be temptingly easy to hide behind a laptop screen, text wall, and quarantined home instead of engaging with people.

I legitimately stand by our decisions about the level of separation we engaged in…..and….It can also turn into an excuse.

But Covid and other physical health issues aren’t the only reason we end up separated and isolated. 

My season of separation began long before Covid was a thing.

Getting divorced in a culture which holds to (largely unwritten) beliefs about divorce being one of the only sins which wasn’t covered on the cross (along with homosexuality, views on hymns vs. choruses and coffee’s place in a sanctuary) will drastically limit your involvement in many circles.

So will questioning the practices and rules of your faith system.

And like the isolation of COVID, there can be benefits to having some time alone AND it can become a shroud we choose to surround ourselves with, keeping ourselves quarantined and isolated because of the words and actions of others, and by our own choices. 

As the ice melts, the vaccines roll out, and my counselor gently challenges me, I feel the possibilities of the world opening up. 

The world opening up is not just about getting back to what we’ve always done.

Any season of separation or change is an opportunity to re-evaluate how we want to engage moving forward. It’s also a challenge to stretch out and strengthen muscles which have atrophied during lack of use. 

One new friend told me they feel like they’ve forgotten how to do date nights, or anything special. 

How do we re-engage in relationships intentionally – not just falling back into old patterns, but taking the time to evaluate what’s important to us, what our boundaries are, and what creates healthy relationships?

How do we dig out from under old habits, rules, and expectations we used to be buried under to Uncover Real relationships?

I don’t know.

But I’m looking forward to spending Season 2 of Uncovering Real exploring how we evaluate and pursue healthy relationships.

Join me here for Season 2 of Uncovering Real every Monday, Wednesday and Friday as I walk through different relationships (Mondays), reflect on what relationships have to do with faith (Wednesdays) and highlight artists that challenge and encourage me (Fridays).

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Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

Donna Joy

“Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

Thousands of years ago in Jerusalem, the crowds were so excited about Jesus’ arrival in town, they welcomed him with the ancient equivalent of rolling out the red carpet for the arrival of a star to a world premiere. Except the red carpet was made up of the coats they threw down (like, from right off their backs) and the branches they ripped off the closest trees (likely palms). They gave up their cloaks and branches and shouts of praise in celebration of the famed prophet and healer arriving in their city. It was loud, it was joy filled, it was intoxicating. And then it was gone. 

In many traditional church observances, the palms used for Palm Sunday celebrations are burned and the ashes sit untouched for nearly a year. Then, on Ash Wednesday, the ashes are mixed with oil and become not something we give, like the coats and branches and shouts of praise, but something we receive. With the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday, the bearer takes on humility and mortality, all that’s left of the celebration.

The palm branches were the crowds, the social following. Loud, lavish, brash and sure.

The ashes are the quiet reflection. Intimate, personal and humble.

In an Ash Wednesday service, as the ashes are crossed on the forehead, the imposer often pronounces, “remember, you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

I am from dust.

I am returning to dust.

Secular sciences and Biblical accounts all reference life created out of dust. Dust was the medium used to create all of life. Dust was the medium used to heal. God mixed his breath with dust and formed humans. Jesus mixed his spit with dust and created sight for a blind man.

God enters and the dust is no longer dust.

God enters and the dust becomes the very medium of life and sight. The transformation from dust and to dust is not limited to just our literal birth and death, it is found in every season of our lives. In every season there are cycles of creation, dust, waiting and re-creation.

“Remember, you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

Today I’m trying to just sit and allow myself space to wonder at the constancy of the cycle, and the impermanence of the things. Everything is made from dust and everything turns to dust. There is grace and freedom in knowing both of those are true – that everything we own, everything on earth that we hold on to, will turn to dust. And re-creation comes out of dust.  

And yet here I am, storing up letters from 30 years ago, holding on to clothes from 20 pounds ago, and installing a shelf for a pile of high heels I can barely remember wearing. As though holding on to those things keeps the person I was, or I wanted to be, or I want to be, real. Maybe I need to put down some of those palm branches and coats (literally…do I need a dozen coats?) and instead, sit with the dust. Remembering the palms they once represented, and receiving the ashes. Laying down the loud, lavish and sure, receiving the personal, intimate and humble.

This is what I want. Or at least this is what I want to want.

It’s not about losing. It’s not even about less. It’s about releasing my grip on what I don’t need in this season, allowing it turn to ash so I can sit in humility, mortality and intimacy. Prepared to receive what’s next. 

Ashes to ashes…