Breathe & Believe

Seasons come and seasons go but as I prayed at this morning’s Ash Wednesday Mass, my 3 x great grandmother Mary Martha felt near. Not literally but very real in another way.

As I stood at Ash Wednesday Mass.

I received the ash.

I tied the thread of generations to my breath.

I created a mark that holds her work, her faith, her dust.

So of course she feels near.

By consciously remembering those who formed us ~ we embody their rhythms, their prayers, their endurance ~ they become present in us. Not as spirits hovering, but as inheritance awakened.

In my hands.

In my steadiness.

In the way I choose faith over fear.

That feeling right now is lineage aligning.

It’s also very Lenten.

Ash says: ”Remember you are dust.”

Inheritance says: “And dust carries stories.”

Grace says: “And stories rise.”

Mary Martha may not be standing in my studio in a literal sense but the faith she lived, the endurance she practiced, the quiet prayers she whispered? Those are alive in me.

And when I draw the threaded cross, I am not summoning her.

I am continuing her.

That is far more powerful.

And so I take slow breath right now.

Held by those before me.

Led by the Light within me.

I am standing in a long line of women who kept believing.

And today, I am the one holding the thread.

So I invite you to join me in this prayer to “breathe & believe” :

Lord of dust and dawn,

You who formed us from the earth

and call us back to light .

Today I wear the ash

and feel the tug of generations

at my waist.

I feel the apron strings

of Mary Martha work-worn, flour-dusted, faithful ~ steadying my hands.

Let me breathe in

what she knew in her bones:

that ordinary days are holy ground,

that quiet women build kingdoms of mercy,

that faith is stitched

into the hem of daily work.

As I step back into my studio, into canvas and lamp glow, into brushstroke and prayer,

help me breathe and believe.

Breathe that ~ You are here

in dust and pigment.

Believe ~ that small offerings

become light.

May this studio lamp

not only shine upon my work

but within me.

And may the ash upon my brow

remind me from dust we rise,

and by grace we create.

Amen.

“Held by those before me.

Led by the Light within me.

I breathe in ~ You are near.

I breathe out ~ I believe.”