Today the church also holds a somber fast traditionally known as Ash Wednesday which dates back to the 11th Century.
In a number of places in the Hebrew scriptures ashes were associated with penance and remorse. The books of Jonah, Amos, and Daniel all note the practice of heaping ashes upon your head as an outward display of how guilt and penitence feel inside.
As the church year begins to ponder the death of the Christ in anticipation for resurrection, a more introspective, prayerful, and yes, honest tone is kept. Ash Wednesday is the start of that long road to Calvary.
While some might consider the practice to be sad or even scary (after all, who likes considering their mortality?!), the wise mystics of all faiths remind us that we must ever keep death before our eyes if we are to truly live.
You cannot outrun mortality, Beloved.
You cannot out-diet, out-exercise, out-supplement, out-buy, or out-smart the quiet, pervasive truth that all creation is indeed, dust at our core (beautiful stardust, to be exact), and we will all one day return to that dust.
There is no out.
And yet, as is true with all paradox, there is a certain amount of freedom that comes with embracing this hard truth. Being Wonder Woman and Superman for too long weighs on us all, and we’re really not meant to fly anyway.
We’re meant to walk, which means we stumble like all walking beings do from time to time. The reality of our imperfection is, too, a gift of grace.
March is, for the ancient Celts, the second month of Spring.
It may be odd to see it as that, especially as so much of the Northern Hemisphere continues to be frozen, and much of it under snow. But the ancient Celts understood that growth happens even if you can’t see it, and that March would be the “break-through” month for much of creation.
It would literally break through the ground in bits and pieces.
I remember one March in Toledo, Ohio, listening to the radio as the snow fell on a Sunday night. Those wonderful words I had longed to hear finally came out of the announcer’s mouth, “No School for Trinity Lutheran Church and School,” and my brother’s and I cheered from our beds that we’d have a snow day that next day.
And as I lay in that bed and looked out the window, I saw the large tree next to my window, snow-covered, with small buds hanging off the branches.
It was ready to bloom, even as a blanket of ice and snow covered it.
And I remember feeling both glad for no school, but also quite sad for that tree that was ready for a break-through, and I resolved at that moment not to wish or pray for anymore snow that March, even if it meant no more snow days, so that tree could have a chance.
A quaint little story, for sure. But impactful for me. I had both extreme naivete (as if my prayers had caused or hastened snow), and some profundity, feeling connected with nature and a responsibility to allow it to do its thing.
March is the break-through month. The vernal equinox will balance life for a bit. The Earth will feel more and more alive with each day.
March is associated with the ash tree. In Nordic mythology Yggdrasil, the world tree, was an ash tree. It represented for the Celts the connection between the heavens and the earth, and in the month where the light and shadows balance for a moment, it makes sense they’d choose this tree.
We can meld our intentions with that of creation and allow each and the other to “do its thing.”
Plant the seeds you’re waiting to sow.
Stick daffodils behind your ear (a common practice for the ancient Celts to honor the Spring).
Embrace a new idea, aligning your inner life with the outer burgeoning life around you.
“O Lord, refresh our sensibilities. Give us this day our daily taste. Restore to us soups that spoons will not sink in, and sauces which are never the same twice.
Raise up among us stews with more gravy than we have bread to blot it with, and casseroles that put starch and substance in our limp modernity. Take away our fear of fat, and make us glad of the oil which ran upon Aaron’s beard.
Give us pasta with a hundred fillings, and rice in a thousand variations.
Above all, give us grace to live as true folk–to fast till we come to a refreshed sense of what we have and then to dine gratefully on all that comes to hand.
Drive far from us, O Most Bountiful, all creatures of air and shadows; cast out demons the demons that possess us; deliver us from the fear of calories and the bondage of nutrition; and set us free once more in our own land, where we shall serve thee as thou has blessed us–with the dew of heaven, the fatness of earth, and plenty of corn and wine.
For the ancient Celts, March was the second month of Spring on the wheel of the year. For them the seasons blossomed like a flower, slowly coming into their own, with that middle month in the triad being the hinge point.
March was the season where the candles were no longer needed at night, and so they’d ceremoniously put them away as a family. Some would even replace the wax candle on the family table with a wooden candle, a reminder for them that they need not strain their eyes at night anymore and were welcome to re-adopt the rhythm of the sun and the moon as their clock.
In mid-March, near the Vernal Equinox, each family would gather in their field, and sometimes whole clans would gather in a shared plot, and facing the sun they’d drop the first seeds in the ground to start the harvest, beginning with grains and root vegetables. Then they’d grab some soil, mix it with some ash from their home hearths, and paint the backs of their beast with the dirt invoking Divine blessing on their work. It was a blessing of both gratitude for the gift of the animal, and a pleading prayer for a prosperous harvest.
March is still a time of preparation for humans. The snow is melting in many places, though we know that there will probably still be snows to come. Ground is being broken, though we know we can’t go into full-planting mode yet. Windows can stay open for brief periods of the day, though a full-on breeze would still be too chilly for many.
But things are changing, Beloved. The Celts understood how to lean into and embrace the change. They welcomed the natural changes of life.
Today, March 2nd, the church remembers brothers John and Charles Wesley, renewers of the church.
John was the 15th child of Susanna and Samuel Wesley, and Charles was the 18th, born in England. Both were ordained as Anglican priests in the early 18th Century, in the midst of a serious decline in the Church of England, both in influence and conversion.
John and Charles grew dissatisfied with the religious life they were instructed in, and Charles started the “Holy Society” at Oxford comprised of those intent on finding a deeper and more meaningful way of spiritual living. They focused on frequent communion, prayer, spiritual practices like fasting, and service to the poor and disenfranchised.
This methodological way of doing things led others to disparagingly call them “methodists.”
The name stuck.
Charles and John were sent to evangelize in Georgia in the 1730’s, primarily to the colonists and the Indigenous Peoples. Their insistence on denouncing both slavery and gin, however, didn’t sit well with the colonists.
Both joined the Moravian church in prayer (though not in an official capacity), having experienced an inner conversion. This sparked the 18th Century Evangelical revival, and the brothers eventually began their own order of Christianity, a “Methodist” way of being in the world.
Charles became an accomplished hymn writer; John an antagonistic writer and theologian, not unlike Martin Luther before him, pushing the church onward. Both were often met with hostility and derision for their thinking and work, which bucked the status quo of the church of the day.
They are a reminder to the church that what at first might seem unorthodox and detrimental may, at length, be just what the church needs for revitalization, renewal and, yes, reform.
-historical notes gleaned from Pfatteicher’s New Book of Festivals & Commemorations
Today many churches remember the Festival of the Transfiguration in the lirturgy, a moveable liturgical feast (though the actual set Feast falls in August).
When it comes to the Transfiguration, Beloved, don’t be distracted by the dazzling clothes.
God who holds the law (Moses) in a hand that will be scarred will rule with justice tempered by mercy, not the other way around.
God who holds prophecy (Elijah) in a hand to be scarred will proclaim truth from behind the picket line, within the ranks of the needy and poor, from the place of poverty, not power.
Don’t be distracted by the dazzling clothes…that’s not where the miracle is.
The miracle is in the fact that God holds mercy over retribution and stands with the poor, not the powerful.
On March 1st the Church remembers a saint who is notable for nothing spectacular…and in that, he is worth remembering: Saint George Herbert, Parish Priest and Poet.
George Herbert was born at the end of the 16th Century in Montgomery Castle. Raised by his mother (who was friends with the influential John Donne), he was handsome, witty and a wonderful scholar.
Befitting his skills, he entered Parliament but found political life to be, well, unsatisfying. Having befriended Nicholas Ferrar and the Little Gidding community, he took up studying Divinity and became a deacon of the church in short order.
In April of 1630 St. Herbert was instituted as the rector of the (very British-ly named) St. Peter’s Fugglestone, and also St. Andrew, Bemerton. These yoked parishes were small and full of salt-of-the-earth folks who not only loved “holy Mr. Herbert,” but received his tender care and attention, too.
Though his congregations were largely illiterate, he took to teaching them with fervor. The Mass, the Catechism, hymns, and spiritual songs, St. Herbert relished these people and they, him, often putting down their work tools at morning and evening when the bells tolled, knowing that St. Herbert would be in prayer (and they joined him from the blacksmith shop, the field, and the wash basin).
Unfortunately St. George was plagued with ill health his whole life, and on March 1st in 1633 he died of consumption and was buried under the altar at St. Andrew parish.
His poetry was published shortly after his death by his friend, Ferrar, under the instructions to publish them if they were any good, but burn them if they were lacking.
They were published, and are considered 17th Century British works of art.
St. George Herbert is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that sometimes just doing your work with care and attention is laudable enough. I still contend that the best sermons on a Sunday morning are heard by less than fifty people.
-historical bits from Pfatteicher’s New Book of Festivals & Commemorations
In Celtic spirituality, February is associated with the rowan tree. Its red berries were thought to guard against all sorts of bad things.
They’d put rowan branches on their cattle sheds and dairy barns to keep the meat and milk fresh and free of disease, and across Celtic lands crosses of rowan twigs were tied with red thread and carried in pockets or sewn into the linings of coats for traveling mercies.
Since the saint of the month, Saint Brigid, was associated with flame and fire, the blazing red berries were thought to be little glimpses of her favor.
I found a modern Celtic prayer to say under the Rowan Moon (February’s moon). And since it’s the almost the last day one can say it, I thought I’d throw it out there.
What I love about this prayer is that, while images of Christ/love and the sun are really common, we don’t get many images of Christ/love being seen in the moon. But in the month where the moon still outshines the sun, it makes sense to have a prayer that highlights this truth, right?
Bright glory, bright moon, the moon that shines on Brigid, lamp of the poor, love, light, illumined by God. Bright moon of glory, teach me good purpose toward all creation. Bright moon of grace, teach me good prayer in accord with Christ’s heart.
Fiery moon of great light, be in my heart be in my deeds be in my wishes. Teach me your grace. Bright moon over Brigid, your light my hope, your light on my purpose here, in accord with God’s satisfaction.
Bright fire, bright moon, point my heart to God’s repose. Point me to my rest, with the Son of Tranquility.
As morning dawns on February 27th, I would lobby hard that the church remember a modern saint who saw everyone as his neighbor, and therefore loved his neighbor as himself (and even more-so) without even trying, while teaching others to do the same: Saint Fred McFeely Rogers, Friend of Humanity and Muse of Young Ones.
Fred McFeely (yes, you read that correctly) Rogers was born in 1928 just as the American landscape was about to take a turn for the worst. Born in Latrobe, PA, Saint Fred was a shy child, spending much of his spare time with puppets he made or who were given to him. He was tormented and bullied at school because of his quiet way, and was called “Fat Freddy” by classmates because he was overweight.
These early experiences no doubt sent him on a spiritual quest for true friendship.
He overcame his shyness in High School through trial and error, finding out what true friendship looked like, and eventually gained a University degree in music. On one of his summers home from college he encountered a new box in his parent’s house: a television. He was intrigued and disgusted.
Saint Fred was not in love with television at first, but saw that it had potential to shape the people who tuned in. He went to work for NBC, and then his local Pittsburgh affiliate, trying his hand at children’s shows and production. While doing all of this he also answered a call from the church and graduated from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. But rather than finding his parish within sacred halls sitting in pews, he cultivated his parish within living rooms across vast distances who sat on couches, floors, or on their knees with their small hands pressed against the screen.
Freddy had found the friends his childhood self desired, but never could make.
Saint Fred had a number of different children’s programs in different markets through the early ’60’s. He worked with child psychologists to understand best how children not only developed, but also how they learned best. He was tireless in trying to make the medium a good for children.
In 1968 Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood began airing nationally on what would become PBS. Over almost 900 episodes children learned how to make and keep friends, sing songs together, use their imaginations, and be curious. When the last episode aired in 2001, Saint Fred had not only left his mark on the television industry, he had left his mark on so many of our hearts, me included.
Fun fact: he taught me what house shoes are…always being sure to change into them when he came in the door.
Alongside his care for children and their education, Saint Fred was a tireless advocate within the halls of power for educational opportunities and children’s rights. He spoke before congress, used politics for the betterment of humans, and gave scores of commencement speeches to eager young minds wanting to change the world like he did.
As if all of the above didn’t keep him busy enough, he also married and had two sons, appropriately named James and John. He kept his license as a Presbyterian minister his many years, and reportedly had a deep spiritual life that also studied mysticism, Buddhism, and many other faiths. He never spoke about religion overtly on the air, but believed his example said volumes about his core convictions.
He was eloquent and honest and earnest. But I think his deep secret to changing the world had very little to do with what he said and most to do with who he was: he was a very good friend.
And that made all the difference.
He died on this day in 2003.
Saint Fred McFeely Rogers is a reminder for me, and should be for the whole church, that sometimes evangelism isn’t done by saying anything about your faith, but rather by simply living it and being a darn good friend in the process.
Let those with ears to hear, hear.
-historical bits from public sources
-icon written by Kelly Latimore (and is available for purchase from him!)
Reluctant Xtian 