My Ash Wednesday "remarks"

“Ash Wednesday”
Ash Wednesday, February 25th, 2008

A deeper faith
Father Jeff Golliher is an Episcopal priest at St. John’s Memorial Church in Ellenville.
He’s also a cultural anthropologist.
He has traveled widely to understand the spiritual dimension of the environmental crisis.
For more than ten years, he was canon for environmental justice and community development at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan.
He now is the environmental representative for the worldwide Anglican Communion at the United Nations.
But mainly, he’ll tell you, he’s a parish priest, and a spiritual director.
He’s written a book called A Deeper Faith, A Journey Into Spirituality.
The book takes the form of a series of letters to a “dear friend” on a spiritual journey.
Lent: the most holy time of the church

Here are a few excerpts:
You are entering the most holy time of the church, a time that represents the most difficult part of a spiritual journey.
It begins with Ash Wednesday, the first day in the season of Lent, when we turn our attention solely to self-examination and fasting in preparation for Holy Week.
The teachings of the church say that anyone can make this passage, but no one can make it alone.
The fact that you’re beginning to realize that you really can’t do this tells me your instincts are good, and precisely for that reason, all your doubts have surfaced, with a vengeance.
Believe it or not, this is a perfectly normal reaction, given the circumstances.
You actually are following the spiritual path, so don’t be surprised that it’s difficult.
There is, in fact, more to life than we can accomplish on our own.
We really do need God’s help.
And when our minds finally meet up with reality, our egos don’t like it one bit.
Welcome to the spiritual path.
Self-examination in Lent
Concerning your self-examination in Lent, I suggest reflecting on some burdensome expectations you’ve likely placed on yourself.
You say that you’re getting nowhere.
You say a dead end has been reached.
My advice, at times like this, is to examine our feelings about the permanently closed door very carefully, and take them to God in our prayers.
Honestly, what else are we going to do?
Do we really want to give up now, believing that the door will remain forever shut?
Now is definitely the time to remember those personal qualities that have brought you to this place in your life:
honesty, loviing-kindness, perseverence, steadfastness, your genuine struggle with life and faith.
You have these qualities, and you’ve used them well.
What next?
So what now?
I can’t tell you exactly what to do, but I will share with you what I do.
This is an ancient spiritual practice, deeply rooted in the Christian tradition, and based on one of Christ’s teachings that I take quite literally.
It begins with the tell-it-like-it-is words we hear on Ash Wednesday:
Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
Although these words may see startling and abrupt, they express one of the most clear-minded thoughts we will ever hear.
The fact of our mortality is unavoidable and very real, and of all the endings in our lives, this, obviously, is the ultimate one.
There’s absolutely nothing morbid about this.
To remember we are dust puts everything else about the here-and-now into perspective.
There is an ending.
The next step is to follow Jesus’ directions about how to pray.
In a very simple and straightforward way, he says, Whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.
I want you to find a quiet, secluded place, perhaps a room in your home.
Go there, alone, and close the door behind you.
You are the one closing the door, no one else but you.
Before you begin to pray, I want you to do something else.
Never mind that it sounds a little crazy.
Remember that image you have of the permanently closed door, the dead end?
The door with a sign over it that says, “It’s all pointless.
I’ll never get anywhere on the spiritual path.”
We give up or never try because we’ve been told so many times that the door won’t open.
Instead of turning away, I want you to face the truth about yourself.
I want you to yell at the closed door in your mind.
Do it as an act of defiant courage or as an act of faith, but do not take “no” for an answer.
Yell until you’re sick and tired of yelling.
Yell at it until you find yourself laughing.
Whatever it takes to break the spell, do it.
This gate cannot be taken by storm.
We can’t knock it down, but we can overcome our disbelief.
We can enter into the ending.
Finally, while you’re still in your room, I want you to say the “Jesus Prayer,” the Prayer of the Heart, with as much devotion and loving-kindness as you can find within yourself.
This short prayer comes from the Eastern Christian tradition.
The words of the prayer, said repeatedly in a mantra-like way, are simply these:
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
The words are ancient, and if you say them enough, the spirit will carry you into the depth of your heart, and God’s.
This is the actual “room” that Jesus is really talking about.
The door will open, because Jesus will open it for you.
I should warn you now that the mind always resists.
As negative thoughts arise, they inevitably will, simply observe them, without making judgments, and then return to the words of the prayer.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
Let them carry you, gradually, to the place of deep spiritual rest within yourself.
Jesus will help you find it.
I hope you will do this spiritual practice throughout the forty days of Lent.
This is my suggestion.
It will be a huge step on the spiritual path.
Even if it makes no rational sense, I want you to do it anyway.
It’s not “giving up chocolate”
Obviously, the kind of Lenten fast I have in mind involves much more than giving up chocolate.
I’m talking about shedding the belief, whether conscious or unconscious, that we have been abandoned, that we have no choice, that we are forever stuck in the way things are.
This great experience of the spiritual path requires our “dying to the world.”
It is the ancient way.
We are mortal creatures with immortal souls.
Yet even death, our greatest fear cannot prevent God from opening that door that seems so clearly shut.
It is possible to enter into the ending we’re so eager to deny.
You are right.
This is an ending, but the passage still exists.
I’m encouraging you to enter into this ending as an act of faith, and I’m telling you that there’s more going on in heaven and on earth han we know or believe.