The year before our mother died

Ash Wednesday, February 18, 2026

(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)

The year before our mother died

Even now, says the Lord,  

return to me with your whole heart,

with fasting and weeping and mourning.

Rend your hearts, and return to the Lord, your God.

Reeling before the blasts of snow and ice a few years ago, Renée Antrosio posted this poem by Gale Walden, her friend, professor of writing and parishioner at New Covenant Fellowship in Champaign, where Renée is a pastor.

Back in the bleak mid-winter, Lent was still weeks away, and Renée felt herself growing impatient. She offered this poem to others who felt the same: “May we savor a little sunshine on this winter day, and may Gale’s words touch you in this holy, strange, and far-from-ordinary time.”

 Ash Wednesday

We are leaving Ordinary Time

time of the winter cardinals, of the wet leaves

under snow—time of could you turn

your head a little bit more toward me

during class picture day.

That cross-eyed girl in fourth grade

has stared back at you for decades.

You hope she didn’t know you

were mean to her behind her back,

that you sometimes crossed your eyes

in fun after she passed you in the hallway,

even though your mother swore

your face could get stuck that way.

 

Your mother told you many things that weren’t true:

cottage cheese and jelly makes a fine dinner,

you always need to wear a slip,

you will succeed at something—we all do—

and some that were: lipstick is essential;

leave a trace everywhere you go,

people will know you’ve been there.

Your father is a good man.

I will always love you.

 

Your mother stays inside you, even though

she lives in the somewhere else now,

someplace where she is a little more like God,

which she would love.

Maybe she lives in the sky

or on a street paved with jewels,

or maybe just still in the ground,

beneath the patchwork blanket her own

mother quilted, waiting

for him and you and the others

who are still walking in and out

of ordinary time toward dust,

smudging ourselves

with ashes, proclaiming

the end and the beginning

of the palms waving in triumph.

Like Renée, the poet is impatient. Let’s get on with it. Let the palms wave in triumph.

For gracious and merciful is our Lord,

slow to anger and rich in kindness.

And who knows?

Perhaps he will again relent

and leave behind a blessing.

So let us blow the trumpet!

During our retreats at the Transforming Center in Chicago, we spent each evening alone and in silence, a practice that in monasteries is called the Great Silence. In the early morning, the sun having risen, 100 or so of us gathered together again  and we shouted the psalm of David as we looked toward each other, alive now after the darkness of a silent night.

O Lord, open my lips and my mouth shall proclaim your praise!

During Lent I am drawn to books about the desert. In the next weeks I’d like to read Carlo Carretto’s Letters from the Desert. “Come with me into the desert,” he says. Carlo loved words, as I do, and at the same time he knew their idolatrous power.

If, through this desire of ours to say something, or do something, you feel that you must open your mouth, then do this: choose one word or a little phrase which well expresses your love for him; and then go on repeating it in peace, without trying to form thoughts, motionless in love before God who is love.”

Four years ago I drove through the plains and desert of Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico, exploring a portion of Old Route 66. In the desert’s dry and endless silence, I found it easier to ask God to let me hear his voice.

The desert’s night sky is beyond deep. A year after Renée shared Gale’s poem, our mother also moved along into heaven, and in the desert it’s natural to wander about this mysterious kingdom, no longer looking for answers but instead seeking our people,  all fearfully and wonderfully made, waiting as Gale wrote – for us … for those …

who are still walking in and out

of ordinary time toward dust,

smudging ourselves

with ashes, proclaiming

the end and the beginning

of the palms waving in triumph.

Amid the anguish of temporal life, which ends, there is great hope – which does not end. Over and over, year after year, the Lectionary’s “Verse Before the Gospel” comes from Psalm 95. It comes from there again today:

If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

(Joel 2, Psalm 51, 2 Corinthians 5, Psalm 95, Matthew 6)

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

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