Can’t Spell Valentine without LENT

Febraury 14, 2024



A week or so ago, I cam across this meme thanks to a Facebook posting by someone I’ve never met.

The week before that I was joking with some folks about what might be on conversation hearts for this year’s Valentine-Ash Wednesday combo.

I’m not sure I’ll ever hear the word VaLENTine the same again.

Blessing the Dust – A Blessing for Ash Wednesday

All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners

or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial –

did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?

This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.

This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.

This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.

So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are

but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made
and the stars that blaze
in our bones
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.

—Jan Richardson from Circle of Grace

Do you have any questions for the Camel? Questions about God, or Jesus, or the Church? About how to be Christian? Submit them via email to clergy@epiphanyec.org. Your name will be kept anonymous. 

And a response will show up in a future Hump Day Message!
God Loves You. No Exceptions.
Wednesday, 2/14 – Ash Wednesday Holy Communion with Imposition of Ashes:
7:30am (Chapel) Noon (Chapel) 7:00pm (Nave)

Ashes to Go:
1pm outside Door 1

Four Wednesdays in Lent Online Compline Offerings, 7pm
Wedneday, 2/28
Wednesday, 3/6
Wednesday: 3/13
Wednesday: 3/20