liturgy: you turn my mourning into dancing.

a liturgy for the gift of time.

My birthday was this week (!). And as a person who lives most comfortably in the future — wondering, wishing, planning, dreaming, catastrophizing — I’m obsessed with birthdays and the new year.

I love those thresholds that create a brief, tender opportunity for us to look clearly at our lives.

Every year around my birthday, I make plans for the next year. I dream new dreams and revisit old ones. And I do the ritual I love the most.

I look through my camera roll.

My photos are a little time capsule, delivering me back to very particular points in my life. I scroll through and try to remember:

A year ago today, where was I?
What was I worried about?
How was I growing?
What was I dreaming?
What about two years ago? Three years ago? Five years ago?

I try to hold all the previous versions of me with tenderness, remembering that they were giving all they had and doing the best they could. There was so much they didn’t know — just like me, just like now.

one year ago. I had just started a job I desperately wanted to be good at. I was so excited and so terrified at the unknown of marriage. I was nesting, trying to make my own space in a home that didn’t yet feel like mine. My best friend was in town, and one free evening – just me and her at a wine bar in Nashville – felt like the most miraculous gift.

two years ago. I was slowly starting to build a life in a new city. I was eager and excited and scared of all the newness, and to avoid the newness I was just sprinting from one moment to the next. I was scared that I wouldn’t build community here, but community was well on its way.

three years ago. I had just snuck away from my corporate job for a few days to explore Nashville and try on this new insane dream for a weekend. My hair was so long back then. I had applied to divinity school, and I was so afraid that I wouldn’t get in. The grief of leaving the city that raised me — grief I’m still processing to this day — hadn’t yet arrived.

four years ago. oh boy, I feel so much tenderness for this version of me. In the worst relationship of my life – dangerous to my spirit, damaging to my nervous system. I wouldn’t leave it for another few weeks, but I was crying constantly because my body already knew it was time. I barely recognize this person, but I feel her disorientation so deeply. She doesn’t know yet how long and difficult the road ahead will be, but how beautiful. How beautiful. How beautiful.

We don’t need to wait for a birthday or December 31st to reflect on the gift of time. I think it’s a healthy exercise to incorporate throughout the year. So, as I turn the page of another year, I wanted to create a little reflective liturgy for us.

Time can harden us, or it can soften us. Time can make us bitter, or it can make us tender. Zooming out a bit and taking a moment to appreciate the topography of our lives can remind us that sometimes, those divine gifts of healing, wisdom, relief, and release take time, but joy comes with the morning.

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Opening.
Take a few deep breaths.
Arrive.
Be just here, for the next few minutes.
If you are able, light a candle to begin your time.

Read the opening text.
Psalm 30:1-5 [from Wilda Gafney’s Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church]

I will extol you, Ark of Safety, because you have pulled me up
And have not let my enemies rejoice over me.
Healing one, my God, I cried to you for help,
And you healed me.
Ever-living God, you brought my soul up from Sheol;
You preserved my life from descent to the Pit.
Sing praises to the Faithful God, you her faithful;
Give thanks remembering her holiness.
For her fury is a moment, her favor a lifetime.
Weeping may pass the night, yet in the morning, joy.

Read the reflective poem.
blessing of the precious mess by anna blaedel via Enfleshed

darling one—
you precious mess—
you exhausted, grieving, hollowed, hallowed, hallelujah of a human—
today, if even for a moment, may you feel:
your own beating heart
your own courageous coeur
your chest rising and falling with breath
which is spirit
which is lifeforce
keeping pulse
marking time
finding space—
regardless of how you are feeling
no matter what you are capable of
or not—
and, just for a moment
may you find rest
a bit of ease, held
in that sacred rhythm
that cannot be
without you
because you, you precious mess,
have breath and heart and lifeforce
pulsing through you, yet.

A ritual of reflection.
Take a moment to take a scroll through your camera roll (or old Spotify playlists or journals). Pick a day, and look at where you were on that day last year, the year before, the year before – as far back as you want to go. Take a moment to reflect or journal on one or more of the following prompts:

• Where were you this time last year? The year before that? The year before that? What was on your mind? What were you worried about? 

• What worries of that time have dissolved?

• What new blessings, new possibilities were on their way, even if you didn’t know it yet?

• What healing has arrived in your life since then?

• What mourning has been turned into dancing?

Now, turn your sights to the present:

• What is on its way to you now? What do you hope is on its way to you now?

• How are you growing?

• What do you hope is different, this time next year? What is your prayer?

Closing reading.
Psalm 30:11-12 [NRSVUE]

You have turned my mourning into dancing;
you have taken off my sackcloth
and clothed me with joy,
so that my soul may praise you and not be silent.
O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.

Closing prayer.
God of healing Time, 
you turn our mourning into dancing and our weeping into joy.
Let every passing day soften our hearts, soothe our fears, and dissolve our bitterness.
May we grow wise as we grow old,
dancing in the light of the morning
and bearing witness to the beauty of the present moment.