{"id":1244,"date":"2019-02-11T10:46:56","date_gmt":"2019-02-11T16:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worship\/?p=1244"},"modified":"2019-03-13T10:25:40","modified_gmt":"2019-03-13T16:25:40","slug":"god-will-carry-us-through-every-death-worshiping-with-children-on-ash-wednesday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worship\/1244\/","title":{"rendered":"God Will Carry Us Through Every Death: Worshiping with Children on Ash Wednesday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>Today&#8217;s post is by Miriam Schmidt, pastor\/priest of All Saints in Big Sky, a shared ministry of the Episcopal and Lutheran (ELCA) Churches in Big Sky, Montana.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Children know about death. More than we give them credit for. Many kids by the age of 5 or 7 have experienced at least the death of a beloved pet, or even a family member or friend. They know what it is like one day to be able to burrow their face in a cat\u2019s fur, hold their grandfather\u2019s hand, hear the voice of an auntie calling their name, smell the vanilla scent of Nana; then the next day, to feel the sudden wretched absence that comes with death. There is no longer any way to touch or smell or hear or see the physical body of the one who has died.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1253\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/60\/2019\/02\/squeaksgrave-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worship\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/60\/2019\/02\/squeaksgrave-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worship\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/60\/2019\/02\/squeaksgrave-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worship\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/60\/2019\/02\/squeaksgrave-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worship\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/60\/2019\/02\/squeaksgrave-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worship\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/60\/2019\/02\/squeaksgrave-250x250.jpg 250w, https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worship\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/60\/2019\/02\/squeaksgrave-350x350.jpg 350w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Children know about death, the aching hole it leaves behind; and if they do not know about it yet, they will soon enough.<\/p>\n<p>So it is important for us, as adults, to find ways to include our children in Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday is a gift of the church to us all. The day\u2019s simple and stark ritual of ashes speaks honestly of death. We take dirt, ashes of palms, and press them onto each other\u2019s foreheads. We say the old words: <em>Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This act might be straight-up depressing, did we not mark the ashes in the shape of a cross. The same cross is marked on the foreheads of the newly baptized. The same cross is inscribed on every Christian forever. With Ash Wednesday\u2019s cross of ashes, we are saying that even in the face of death, our loving God is as close as our skin. Jesus is smudged on us, rubbed into our flesh, so that when we weep with all our hearts for those who have died, we are not alone. God is <em>this <\/em>close \u2013 a cross on our foreheads. So we can live in hope that a God so close will carry us through every death, even our own.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1250\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/60\/2019\/02\/Ashes_fb-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worship\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/60\/2019\/02\/Ashes_fb-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worship\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/60\/2019\/02\/Ashes_fb-250x166.jpg 250w, https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worship\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/60\/2019\/02\/Ashes_fb-527x350.jpg 527w, https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worship\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/60\/2019\/02\/Ashes_fb.jpg 720w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>How does your congregation do at involving children in Ash Wednesday? Many children \u2013 not to mention their parents \u2013 will benefit from some preparation. Perhaps the children can help burn last year\u2019s palms into Ash Wednesday\u2019s ashes after worship on Transfiguration Sunday. On the day itself, maybe children can be invited forward before the Imposition of Ashes to see and touch the ashes for themselves? Can they be allowed to mark their own cross? Or cross another child? Afterwards, on the first Sunday in Lent, can Ash Wednesday\u2019s leftover ashes be brought out again and shown to those who forgot it even was Ash Wednesday, so they can see for themselves.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u00a0<\/em><em>This is what we did a few days ago: We traced ashes on foreheads in the shape of the cross. God is as close as the skin on our foreheads. Even in the face of death.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s post is by Miriam Schmidt, pastor\/priest of All Saints in Big Sky, a shared ministry of the Episcopal and Lutheran (ELCA) Churches in Big Sky, Montana.\u00a0 Children know about death. More than we give them credit for. Many kids by the age of 5 or 7 have experienced at least the death of a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":241,"featured_media":1249,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-post"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>God Will Carry Us Through Every Death: Worshiping with Children on Ash Wednesday - ELCA Worship<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worship\/1244\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"God Will Carry Us Through Every Death: Worshiping with Children on Ash Wednesday - ELCA Worship\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today&#8217;s post is by Miriam Schmidt, pastor\/priest of All Saints in Big Sky, a shared ministry of the Episcopal and Lutheran (ELCA) Churches in Big Sky, Montana.\u00a0 Children know about death. 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