Ash Wednesday- At the threshold of wilderness

​Ash Wednesday marks the first day of the season of Lent. Lent is the time that the ancient church set apart for getting ready for the mystery of Easter Sunday. Easter and the story of Jesus’ resurrection is such a big mystery that we have to take time to get ready for it. We mark the season of Lent for 40 days… or 6 weeks. 40 days is symbolic of Jesus’ time in the wilderness after his baptism, which was symbolic of the number of years the people of God in the Hebrew bible wandered in the desert before finally coming into the promised land. We take time during the season of Lent to be in a Wilderness space…. A space set apart that looks and feels different than the rest of our day to day lives. Kind of like how when we go on a hike, or to the beach, or spend time in the mountains it feels different.

​Supplies

Time required: 15 minutes to 1 hour (depending on age of kids)
Fire – either a fire pit in your backyard, or a fireplace in your home, or a gas stove or a lighter over the sink
Marshmallows – big ones
Roasting sticks
Paper and markers
A bit of earth

Directions

Light a fire together.
Explain the colloquialism “that really burns me”. Use examples from your own life of things that cause you exasperation, zap your energy or leave you feeling down. With older kids, talk too about how we sometimes can evoke that feeling for others. If it helps, make a list together of all the things that “burn you” or that you might do unintentionally to burn others.

Now, pull some marshmallows out!
Share together different ways you know that marshmallows respond to fire. Watch a marshmallow completely burn together. Toast one just a smidge. Let one catch fire and blow it out. Notice what happens to the inside. It gets soft and gooey (or melts altogether if you just leave it in the fire!). When hard things happen in life, the insides of us that might have felt firm and reliable start to get gooey. We need time in our days to reset and “firm up”. Talk together about some of the rhythms that help you do that.

Taking naps or breaks.
Having time to reflect.
Going outside and breathing fresh air.
Taking a vacation from work or school.
Having a trusted grown-up help you identify your emotions.

Share again the intro from above about wilderness time.
Lent is a time to help us “firm up” our insides and turn ourselves back towards the thing that firms us up: God. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of that time. It shows us not only how we have God’s firming power in common with humanity, but how we also have God’s cycle of creation in common. Where the marshmallow that got burned into ash came from somewhere kind of impersonal, (the Jet Puff factory), we all are born from God’s creation and one day we get folded back into God’s creation. So, at the beginning of Lent, we mark ourselves with a sign of that reminder. A cross made of ash/dust and we speak the words that God spoke to Adam and Eve: remember you are dust, you were taken from the earth…. And to dust and earth you shall return.

Another way to think about it: We belong to God and we will one day return to God. Sometimes the stuff in life that “burns us” isn’t God-stuff. So we take time to firm ourselves up and return to living in a way that reminds us of who we are and whose we are.

Take a bit of earth around the fire and mark one another’s forehead as you speak those words of blessing to one another.
Some ways to phrase it that might best fit your kids:

REMEMBER YOU ARE GOD'S AND TO GOD'S CREATION YOU BELONG.
REMEMBER YOU ARE STARDUST, AND TO STARDUST YOU SHALL RETURN.
REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE AND TO WHOM YOU WILL ALWAYS BELONG.
REMEMBER YOU ARE MADE OF EARTH AND TO EARTH YOU WILL RETURN.

​While you’re enjoying your marshmallows (maybe some s’more material shows up too?), make a list of words and phrases that remind you of your firm places…. Of who you are and whose you are. Save that list somewhere prominent in your house during the season of Lent. Now, take the list of things that “burn you” and burn it.

Say a prayer together releasing those things to God.