Ash Wednesday: Divine Dust & Ash into Oil Home Ritual
We’ve released worship music videos with lyrics for each song on the “Speak Boldly” album by Jenny LaJoye. You can find these worship music videos on our Juniper Formation YouTube Channel, and more easily in this “Speak Boldly” YouTube Playlist.
Each week during our Lenten journey we will highlight a worship video and offer accompanying ritual, scripture, and prayer for you to engage at home by yourself, with your household, or in congregational worship.
Ash Wednesday
We offer you this liturgy of musical meditation, ritual, blessing, scripture, dance, and prayer that you can experience by yourself or in the company of your household.
Divine Dust
As you listen to “Divine Dust” (see video below) we invite you to anoint yourself or one another in your household with ash. As you are anointed or anointing speak this blessing to one another: “There was a time when I/you was/were not. And to dust I/you shall return. God walked with us that we might walk with God. Divine assumed the dust that we might be Divine.”
To receive ashes, you may:
- Touch the cool wick of a candle you use to invite God’s presence into your midst
- Write your sorrows and confessions on pieces of paper and then burn them in a safe place (fireplace, metal bowl, outdoor fire pit, etc.)
- Use ash already present in a cool fireplace, wood stove, or outdoor pit as a memory of all the times you have gathered together to find warmth and comfort
If you are using loose ashes, you may need to add a small drop of oil for the ash to leave a mark.
Pray to God and together, confessing the ways in which you have been reluctant to follow the Way of Christ, the ways in which you have been too comfortable, too afraid, or too pained to seek the liberation that comes from loving relationships with God and one another.
Receive and offer God’s love, grace and forgiveness to yourself and one another using your own words, or simply offering this closing blessing, “It takes courage to confess where you have struggled in your relationship to God and others. I offer you God’s love, grace, and forgiveness through the words of Jesus who often spoke to those who came to him seeking healing, ‘Your faith has made you well, go in peace, and be healed.’”
Scripture: Ecclesiastes 3:20
“All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again.”
Artist’s Songwriting Reflection: I wrote "Divine Dust" around the time of Ash Wednesday. It's the nerdiest song on this album. I was thinking about the words spoken on Ash Wednesday: "Dust you are, and to dust you will return." I put this idea in conversation with two third/fourth century theologians: Athanasius, who said, "[The Word of God], indeed, assumed humanity that we might become God," and Arius, who controversially claimed that "there was a time when the Son was not" (he was deemed a heretic). What I got was a song about the finite versus the infinite, the humanity of the divine, and the divineness of humanity.
Ash into Oil
The past year has been filled with such loss and death that we have been grieving more regularly than we have not. We’ve been more present to death, than perhaps to life.
The meaning of Ash Wednesday may seem both heavier and simultaneously no different than any other day. For those who may have been living in the ash this year, we also offer another song titled “You Are,” off of Jenny LaJoye’s “Altars” album. You can listen to the track here.
As you listen to “You Are” we invite you to anoint yourself or one another in your household with oil. As you are anointed or anointing speak this blessing to one another: “You are sown to be grown. You are clothed in a robe made of dreams sweeter than home, made of more than you ever hoped. Get off your knees and dance 'til your feet turn this dust into soil, that ash into oil.”
To receive oil, you may:
- Use olive oil, which is the base for anointing oils today and in Biblical times
- Select a cooking oil from your kitchen that reminds you of lovingly preparing and gathering together for meals
- Choose an essential oil (safe for direct skin contact) or lotion, picking a scent that brings you comfort, rejuvenation, or calm
- Opt to add glitter into your oil to celebrate the beauty and brightness that is God's creation—the divine in each of us
We invite you to dance by yourself or with one another, engaging the fullness of your body, in whatever ways you are able, whether in a chair or standing, to dance or shake out your grief, to celebrate your life and the lives lived by others, to be reminded that the Holy Spirit is still moving in our hearts and bodies, no matter how much pain, death, and grief we experience of others and our selves.
“You Are” Lyrics
Faint spirit,
dressed in all of the pieces that once made your heart
Prisoner, stuck between safety and doors that are open
Faint spirit,
bound by all of the hurt so you don't fall apart
Tears slipping out of the place you forgot was still broken
I'm telling you
I'm telling you
You are sown to be grown
You are clothed in a robe
made of dreams sweeter than home
made of more than you ever hoped
You are, you are, you are
Get off your knees and dance 'til your feet
turn this dust into soil, that ash into oil
I'm telling you
You are sown to be grown
You are clothed in a robe
made of dreams sweeter than home
made of more than you ever hoped
Scripture: Isaiah 61: 1-4, The Good News of Deliverance
“The spirit of God is upon me,
because God has anointed me;
God has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
To proclaim the year of the God’s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
To provide for those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a garland instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of God, to display God’s glory.
They shall build up the ancient ruins,
they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
the devastations of many generations.
Closing Invitation
We invite you to enter Lent by drawing closer to God and one another by deepening your spiritual practices and awareness.
What harmful practices or habits can you release?
What loving and spiritual practices and habits might you welcome into your life?
For both your release and your invitation, may it be so.
Offering
We invite you to make an offering today.
An offering is a way we share with one another in support of the whole, and as a loving act of co-creating a new way of being together and with God.
In all their forms, your offerings connect us with the Holy Spirit through meaningful relationship and encourage Juniper Formation to prophetically reimagine the Church.
For all of the ways you give your spirit, heart, gifts, talents, and resources, we thank you.
