March 2, 2022

Dear Friends,

Today marks Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent in the Christian liturgical calendar, the season which commemorates Jesus’ forty-day sojourn in the desert. In many Christian denominations, Lent remains a time of contemplation and interiority when we slow down and give ourselves space to encounter the complications of ourselves as complex mixtures of humanity and divinity.

As the world rages with war and suffering, and as reports on the climate crisis grow ever more dire, it can be easy to slide into despair — or to ignore the invitation of Lent. Why seek to inhabit our own personal shortcomings when the world is on fire and we are worn down and weary from the worry of it?

And yet, Lent is an invitation to do just that — to be present to our own suffering so that we may more deeply understand and tend to the collective pain of our earth. We must meet our grief and tend to it, so that it will not fester and come out in ways that harm us and others. When we seek to avoid grief and death, we ironically end up creating systems and cultures that deal in death. And so, this Lent, we invite you to be, as gently as possible, in conversation with your own generative darkness.

We also know that moments of brightness, lightness, and community are essential to this ongoing work, and so we are happy to offer a number of programs during this season. First, on March 8th, our Executive Director, Allen Ewing-Merrill, will host a Fireside Chat with interfaith environmental advocate Rabbi Yonatan Neril. Then we have two beautiful day-long retreat offerings, Creating a New Story and Shining in the Shadows, plus an online screening of the film Truth Tellers and a live question and answer session with several of the featured activists. And, should your Lenten practices lead you to a longing for in-person retreat, we invite you to consider the Discovering Renewal retreat at Montreat Conference Center in North Carolina. Our own Aram Mitchell will be leading the intentional hiking track of that program.

We hope you will make one or more of these programs a part of your Lenten journey. And, in conclusion, we share this blessing from Malcolm Guite, brought to our attention by our friend Margaret Bullitt-Jonas:

Receive this cross of ash upon your brow
Brought from the burning of Palm Sunday’s cross;
The forests of the world are burning now
And you make late repentance for the loss.
But all the trees of God would clap their hands,
The very stones themselves would shout and sing,
If you could covenant to love these lands
And recognise in Christ their lord and king.
He sees the slow destruction of those trees,
He weeps to see the ancient places burn,
And still you make what purchases you please
And still to dust and ashes you return.
But Hope could rise from ashes even now
Beginning with this sign upon your brow.

With best wishes,
The BTS Center Team
The BTS Center | 207.774.5212 | info@thebtscenter.org | www.thebtscenter.org
 Our mission is to catalyze spiritual imagination with enduring wisdom for transformative faith leadership. We offer theologically grounded programs of continuing education and spiritual formation, including workshops and retreats, learning cohorts, public conversations, and projects of applied research.