Buried Hallelujahs

Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday and the silence left behind

Some bury their hallelujahs. I burn mine.

The stench of smoldering palms is what has marked my Shrove Tuesday for the last few years. Last year’s Palm Sunday hallelujahs are pulled out, dry and brittle, curled into a dozen wayward tendrils, and I steel myself for the task of beholding the light that has gone inside.

Crumbled under the weight of what would crush it, it burns brighter, singing hallelujah once more before settling back into what it was before it burst forth in flame — the dark stuff of earth. Its darkness now swallows light, no longer holding it within. But mixed with other particulates, it will nourish life, though it cannot sustain it on its own.

These are my buried hallelujahs, burned and mixed with paint, buried in layers on a canvas, worked into nourishment over the next 40 days as the work is formed, and I with it.

I will sing new hallelujahs, and I will bury them again. And the cycle will continue. Though my hallelujahs are not permanent, God is. And He is the faithful home in which my hallelujahs find their rest, and I mine.

Like these palms, all I have to offer is burned up on the altar. All that’s left are the charred remains that the light is not in. The whole notion of hallelujahs being burned up, our living sacrifices being placed on the altar is as scary as hell. Unless, that is, I remember that the light is in me. What is real, what is eternal, what is His will remain in Him. I have the stuff of Him in me, and what is His stays His - it is only what I hold for myself, cling to as mine apart from Him that meets the flame and does not join it, spit out and left behind — a fragile husk that reeks of ash and smoke.

And that is what will mark me for death tomorrow, on Ash Wednesday. That is what will be returned to the ground when Death comes to claim all that doesn’t belong to God. Everything I refuse to relinquish, everything I think is mine, is death.

So give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give to God what is God’s. When God receives what is His and leaves behind what is not, what is left behind won’t matter. And all that is taken up will. So if I want what I am doing to matter, to be worth something, to be worthy, it must be His, not mine.

This is not to say that what is spiritual matters and what is physical doesn’t - it’s not a gnostic game, but the recognition that it all matters. And — it doesn’t. Only He matters. But if everything that is given to Him remains in Him, then all we do to the glory of God matters. Even if it burns away in a bright flash of His light as it returns to Him.

Hannah Hurnard puts it this way in Hinds’ Feet on High Places:

He had said, “Love is beautiful, but it is also terrible — terrible in its determination to allow nothing blemished or unworthy to remain in the beloved.”

When she remembered this, Much-Afraid thought with a little shiver in her heart, “He will never be content until he makes me what he is determined that I ought to be.”

So I take my crumbled hallelujahs, a shriveled embarrassment of what I thought they were, and I watch them burn away, releasing a brief flame of true hallelujah, shining out like shook foil, as they do. For it is only in death that we truly live. What we call life is just the vessel that collects our true hallelujahs until they are offered in a brilliant flash of glory when we finally meet Him face to face and all that isn’t hallelujah is left in the dust.

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Lenten Practice: A Digital Fast

As I’ve listened over Shrovetide, I’ve noticed the invitation to step back from some of my digital engagement and step into being present in some intentionally analog ways. I’m still working out exactly where the safeguards will fall, but I’ll still be in this space weekly over Lent, mostly because I’ve committed to a weekly Artist’s Way check-in here. My aim is to stay off social media except for once a week, for the purpose of offering one post from the week and dropping a substack link in Instagram. I’m going to refrain from shopping on Amazon, opting instead for my local shops. And I’m going to try recipes from the cookbooks I already have instead of my usual go-to of googling a quick recipe. If you see me less in online spaces, that’s the story. If you see me more in real life, I’m glad.

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Invitation: Buried Hallelujahs

Does your church bury hallelujahs? Ours doesn’t, and I’ve never been in one that does. The whole notion is relatively new for me, but one I’ve seen people engaging with in creative ways. The bits of palm branch that didn’t burn down to small enough bits went into the garden - nourishing the life that will be springing forth in the coming months. It occurs to me that planting seeds is a little like burying hallelujahs.

I listened today to Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. It’s such a beautiful song. There are songs I will refrain from listening to for the entirety of Lent, and this is one of them. It’s a bit like burying hallelujahs.

Of course, you could literally bury objects with hallelujahs written on them, as some I know do. It’s not something I’ve ever done, but the idea is growing on me. If this is part of your own practice, will you let me know what your experience with it has been? I’d love to learn more!