Ash Wednesday in a Burning World
I love Ash Wednesday.
On the surface, it’s a peculiar day to look forward to. A staple of the Christian liturgical calendar, Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent with a reminder that we are but dust, and to dust we shall return. It jogs the memory of our fleeting experience on the planet, yet it also reminds me that I am not so different from the soil between my fingertips. I remember that my body is a temporarily fragile thing, yet as my pastor traces the cross onto my forehead with soot-covered fingertips, I am also reminded to live in my body, to live with faith embodied.
Ashes feel particularly poignant this year.
Just a month ago I could open up instagram and watch flames dance across my laptop screen. Wildfire painting California in shades of red and orange, swallowing buildings and trees, driving wildlife from their habitats in droves; all interspersed with desperate pleas from families who’ve lost everything.
It’s a different side of the same coin that rolled through the mountains of my home state with lethal force. The internet asks why the folks of Western North Carolina did not evacuate. I don’t know how to explain that they shouldn’t have to: hurricanes aren’t supposed to hit sleepy blue ridge towns.
In the same breath I struggle to take, old men with snow-colored hair and tangerine skin go green— green the color of dollar bills, plotting how many they can stack before they die, a death that will come for them before the horrors of the climate crisis become a lethal reality. While they trade votes for gasoline coated coins, I wonder if I should start saving seeds.
In late January, after seeing a particularly terrible image of a burning West Coast forest, I opened a new tab to write my reps. Except my representatives are different this time around, for the district lines have been redone once again in hopes that certain political powers might maintain the majority. I turn to the internet to find out which side of the squiggling boundary line that cuts through my hometown my house sits on, and am served an AI generated answer. I have inadvertently wasted gallons of water to discover that the man who supposedly represents my interests to the government does not even have a section for climate on his website. The urge to throw my laptop across the coffee shop flares and lingers as I contemplate how hard it would be to scoop up my husband, our cats, and flee somewhere that the iCloud cannot touch.
It feels like the world is burning away and all I can do is grasp at the ashes.
The counter-arguments ring hollow to me. It is true: the world has always been broken. Varying levels of hostility abound. Even if we had completely cut the use of fossil fuels back when oil companies discovered how negatively they affected the planet (they’ve known how bad things could be since the 1970s, in case you were wondering), we would still have devastating storms and harrowing natural disasters.
Yet it’s impossible to look away from the effects of the climate crisis.
Christians have long used the creation narrative as a ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card to do whatever we want to the environment. The NIV translates Genesis 1:28 as reading:
God blessed [Adam and Eve] and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Other translations use words like “dominion” or “steward” in place of rule, but the general sentiment remains– there is a hierarchical order given that places humanity at the supposed ‘top’ of this creation pyramid.
This lack of textual understanding has made the climate crisis into a political issue for Christians. Politicians and oil-lobbyists have been able to twist divine words into a useful tool. “Why should Christians care about preserving the earth?” they whisper. “Didn’t God give you command over it? In fact, it would probably be UNgodly to place the needs of the environment over humanity’s consumption.”
They forget about Jesus (they always do).
In Christian thought, the Old Testament is like a giant arrow pointing to the coming of Jesus. Poor leadership foils the true leadership of Jesus, a king who lays down his crown, humbling himself to wash the feet of his people, to heal them and to nurture them, to comfort them in their pain and to die for them. Moreover, we are made in the image of this king. So when we are commanded to rule or to steward, we are given responsibility. We are commanded to sacrifice for the good of others. Jesus flips the hierarchy, establishing leadership as a position that lifts up the needs of others.
The creation narrative is not an excuse to do whatever we want to the planet because “God put humans in charge.” It’s a snapshot of the Lord tasking humanity with maintaining a world all living things can thrive in.
So far, most of us have done a capital-B Bad job.
Look, I know there are approximately 10 million things to worry about, especially in this political climate. But the environment has always been a topic with a particular pull on my heart. See, I care about the environment because it’s a faithful practice, and also because I enjoy living. I like not fighting for clean water access. I enjoy the turning of seasons. I like being able to eat. It’s nice to visit public lands– spaces that exist not to turn a profit, but to inspire wonder. I like breathing clean air. And I think other people should also be entitled to those things.
Like so many things under this administration, our environment is threatened.
The president has fired many of the park rangers maintaining our public land, announced cutbacks to EPA standards, and declared intent to slice into our national parks for monetary gain- oil drilling, deforestation efforts, and mining. It’s not only a destruction of a long-standing American tradition of public land access, if implemented, these proposals will hurl us even more rapidly forwards in our current climate crisis.
They say it’s because of the economy– but who is that economy serving? Because it doesn’t seem to be paying park rangers, air traffic controllers, or federal workers. It’s not going into grants and public aid. Increasingly, our economy serves only the wealthiest, who in turn, seem intent only on gathering more and more money, avoiding tax cuts, and privatizing critical infrastructure and institutions.
But don’t worry guys– it’s gonna trickle down any day now!
(“For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil…” 1 Timothy 6:10a)
Can you tell I find it easy to tap into the consistent flow of rage over it all?
I find it more difficult to remove myself from said rage overflow, but turning my attention to actual, tangible things is helpful in channeling my frustration into action. The desire to make my art a little more physical has been pressing against the back of my mind quite a bit. It wages a righteous war with the part of me that thinks my art must primarily exist in easily consumable forms, aka making things primarily for the intent of putting them on the internet. Pinterest has also been serving me a lot of zine templates lately, so I thought “why not make my own?”
This decision happened on Sunday, so I threw everything together very quickly in time to post today, coinciding with Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent.
Often, Lent is a time of taking away– aka fasting. I’ve fasted from a lot of different things in different years, from social media (did not break my addiction) to makeup (absolutely changed my life). This fasting is intended to bring the person closer to God. One thing I’ve seen others do but not tried myself is adding something in to supplement their fasts– a scripture reading, a prayer, a walk, etc. Intentional actions to commune with the Lord. I wanted to try that this year, and with the collision of Ash Wednesday and environmental concerns, I decided to pursue an intentional practice of praying over the planet. An 8 page zine seemed like a perfect fit– cyclically traveling through the days of creation* to pray over different aspects of the environment.
*I don’t actually believe in the notion of creation happening in 24 hour days as we think of them, rather, I believe scripture uses the word “day” to refer to distinct periods of time.
Each page is a day– sort of. I made the first day into the cover, and then split animals and humanity up. I figured by making a seven day cycle, it would be easy to go through the prayers during the week, matching up the rest day with Sunday (or whatever day is Sabbath for you).
The cover is supposed to be God’s hands around the earth– formless, without shape.
Day 1 (Page 2) is the skies and the seas. These two vast places contain so many microplastics, microplastics that have existed only since plastic was first invented. Which was less than a century and a half ago. Estimates about human inhalation of microplastics come from the Center for International Environment Law, estimates of plastics and microplastics in our oceans come from UNESCO.
Day 2 (Page 3) is the separation of sea and land, which made me think of the eroding coastlines that come with sea level rise. As we release more greenhouse gases, the planet warms. And as the planet warms, ice melts, creating rising sea levels. Coastal communities are vulnerable to this, as are island nations. This is a particular injustice, since the vast majority of island nations are in the global south– which has barely contributed to the changing climate. The measurement of rising sea levels comes from climate.gov
Day 3 (Page 4) is the sun, moon, and stars. I debated what to put for this one– I was leaning towards light pollution, but in researching, discovered that light pollution is made worse by general air pollution, making me pivot. According to WHO, air pollution increases human chance of disease, organ failure, and cancer.
Day 4 (Page 5) is creatures of the air and sea. I wanted to focus in particular on our coral reefs, which sustain life in both the oceans and the skies. Besides serving as a habitat for so much ocean life, reefs absorb huge amounts of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas. However, the increase in ocean temperature, combined with the plastics and chemicals in our waters, is killing them. WEForum estimates that if we don’t cut our emissions drastically in this next decade, 99% of reefs could die.
Day 5 (Page 6) is the creatures of the land. Red pandas, tigers, monarch butterflies, and Indian elephants are all endangered species. By 2050, the National Parks Service says we could lose up to 35% of all wildlife due to the drastic changes in climate.
Day 6 (Page 7) is humanity. This was a hard one, because the truth of the matter is that corporations, not individuals, are responsible for the brunt of climate change. However, as individuals, we have the power to make choices that will serve the collective. And we want to! A survey conducted by the UNDP found that globally, 72% of people want their governments to move towards climate friendly solutions, like clean energy. By making sustainable choices (like not buying fast fashion, having more plant based diets, taking more public transit, choosing a more sustainable but expensive option, attending protests, boycotting major polluters), we can move the needle. Is it going to move as much as if the ghosts of climate past, present, and future gave oil execs a little visit? No. But it still makes a difference. And maybe you’ll influence others to move their needle too.
Finally, Day 7 (Page 8, the back cover) is rest. Rest and give thanks for the natural world around you. Take a walk, sit outside, listen to rain hitting the window. The work of making the world a better, more just place is not quick. We live in a time of such instant gratification; of overnight shipping and internet that loads in milliseconds. We’re accustomed to a rapid pace of life, yet God is calling us to slow down. To breathe. To rest.
Technically, is it my most favorite group of tiny paintings? No. But in an artistic practice way, the goal of this zine wasn’t to make 8 paintings I’m immensely proud of. It was to make a thing I’ve never made before, and make that thing to share with people.
That’s right folks, for the low low price of literally free, you too can download and print this zine! If this is something you’d like to pray through, look through, or just look at, you can hit this link to download this zine as a pdf, print it out, and make it into your own tiny book! I’ve even made you a handy dandy guide for folding and cutting and putting things together:
When you’re done, it looks like this!
If you end up printing this zine out, I’d love to see it! Even if you aren’t religious, I hope that this can still be a piece of art that moves you towards a deeper love for the natural world. Maybe it can be a simple reminder of the beauty of the earth.
Happy Ash Wednesday friends. May you remember your fragility and be comforted by the good news that the brokenness we battle, both on earth and in ourselves, is temporary.
And if you take the ashes today, may your crosses be crosses and not smudges.
