Drew Downs

Make a New Normal

Ash Wednesday

  • About the Food

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    7 min read

    We mistake the purpose of ashes – our symbol of mortality – for only being about death. They are also an invitation to life.

  • Love Awakens

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    9 min read

    Another shooting, further proof of the dangerous social pathologies in the American body politic, could be just a number. But instead, it’s awakening the spirit of love long dormant and suppressed by fear and a narrow understanding of freedom. Last week, I had to write a new sermon. The gospel was about the beginning of…

  • Facing Repentance

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    8 min read

    In Mark 1:9-15, Jesus reveals the mission of God, but another school shooting tests our resolve to see it, or to listen to his words of hope, saying that the time is now, kin-dom is here! A school shooting tests Ash Wednesday’s invitation to reconciliation Lent 1B  |  Mark 1:9-15 I had a really good…

  • Ashes and Hearts – On Fire

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    7 min read

    Most of what we talk about on Ash Wednesday is found in the small part of the Sermon on the Mount we get in the lectionary (Matthew 6:1-6,16-21). The rest of the chapter reveals it means so much more. Ash Wednesday is way more than ashes – it’s the work of forgiveness Ash Wednesday  | …

  • How to Not Celebrate Valentine’s Day

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    6 min read

    It seems weird to mix Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday. One’s the annual celebration of love and the other the annual reminder of our own mortality. But the two belong together more than we think. In 2018 we are fortunate to have St. Valentine’s Day land on Ash Wednesday. And the juxtaposition of the two…

  • A Storm of Ashes

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    7 min read

    Driving home from our pancake dinner last night, having prepared the materials for our Ashes to Go and some Ash Wednesday goodies (which is in the back, please pick one up on the way out), the darkness mixed with the dripping from the sky. The cracks of thunder and streaks so sudden and arresting, any…