Prayer for Ash Wednesday

We are dust–

cosmic remnant of stars,

soot glistening in the sunlight,

embers flickering warmth,

dark fertile soil.

We are stuff that matters,

one, with all our relations,

as common and extraordinary

as is the Earth.

Creator, we are dust,

and to You–our home–we shall return.

Amen.

Words: Jennifer Henry

2021

Pancake Grace

Ordinary blessings…milk and flour, an egg and a bit of butter.  The ingredients of joy are common things that with a little sweetness combine in humble celebration.  The sugary taste of maple, the comfort of a place at the table, tender hands in shared service, hearfelt memories, and the precious sound of children’s laughter.  In times of grief and pain, may we help one another feast on the joy of common grace.   May gratitude and compassion shape bold discipleship until ordinary blessings are shared by all. Amen

Words: Jennifer Henry
Image: Unsplash, Mae Mu

February 17, 2026

Holy Week Reflection

This year as I journey into this story of betrayal and suffering, of God broken among us, by us, of the power of divine solidarity, I am holding in my heart the refugees and migrants of this world–those fleeing in fear, those deported, detained or disappeared, those wrenched from family, those abandoned to political whims, those made some kind of perverse example to show absolute power. Human callousness and cruelty towards displaced, uprooted, migrant or undocumented persons seems at a fevered pitch.

What you do to these, you do to me…says the One who himself was undocumented, a refugee who fled in the night, says the One whose absolute empathy, whose emptying of power, meant his death.

May this story, this year, transform the coldest and hardest of hearts, uproot systems of tyranny and hate …The Easter promise pulls us from the future. May we journey towards it in compassion, and in profound hope.

Words: Jennifer Henry (2025)