Ember Days and the Time of Creation

I am so grateful that the denomination of which I am a part has over the years come to honour the liturgical seasons of the church year.  It seems to me that each has something to offer and to elicit in the circling movement of my life with the Holy One.  I love being part of a community that knows that time cannot be told in a line.

Most recently my denomination and many others have been moved by the very real necessity of paying particular attention to all creation, the honouring of “all my relations” those words of compassion and inclusion rising from the life and speech of Indigenous peoples. 

The Protestant church devoted first four and then six weeks (including Thanksgiving) to this honouring. Originally observed as a Creation Time, many now observe Creation as an additional liturgical season of the church year.

While much beautiful and heartfelt worship is created and shared in during Creation Time, I’ve always longed for a different way of twining my liturgical life with all creation and that, for me, involves the four seasons of my geographical context.  The observance of Ember Days accomplishes that for me in a way that four or six consecutive fall Sundays cannot. 

Ember Days gathers up all those through whose hands its seeds have passed as it moves through the reverent attentions of pre-Christian, Jewish, and early Christian peoples in their various contexts.

Ember Days both honours creation and recalls us to ancient practices. As we consider the reasons other people and the church in other times have marked these days and imagine them in ways that make them new we are connected to the timeless community of saints that are a part, I believe, of “all my relations.

Ember Days have been observed in the Christian church as four groups of three days which makes for a more defined and deeper impression in our days.  While they may originally have been observed in congregational worship and we can still choose to do so, they are also particularly hospitable to the prayer and  practices of individuals or smaller groups.  From my years in pastoral ministry I note the cultivation of practices for reverent attention as essential in these particular times.  So, the honouring of Ember Days offers many elements vital to our life of faith in these particular times: the honouring of creation and its seasons, the liturgical year and the nurture of prayer and practice in individuals and small groups with or without a traditional congregational life.

I love the work of excavating the meaning of Ember Days, bringing their themes to the moment and landscape in which we live now.  I love it so much that I’m working on a resource to encourage you and those you know in Ember Days Prayer and Practice.  Stories and saints, scripture and silences, prayers and practices and music. Look for it in early November in time for the beginning of the liturgical year.

You’ll find resources to for the observance of Ember Days here at Hem Of The Light, November 22, 2024, just in time for the first Ember days of this liturgical year. In 2024 these fall on December 18th, 20th & 21st.