The Lenten Journey

Lent is the season in which we try to “live more nearly as we pray” as
an old hymn put it. Don’t you long to remake some parts of your life to
live more simply, to treat the earth more kindly, to give more
attention and care and appreciation to relationships, to be more
generous and charitable, to have a more peaceful mind and a warmer
heart? I know my own need for these, and I often hear them from others.

There are some good tools to help us change in these directions – they
may sound old-fashioned. Interestingly, almost every religion makes use
of them in some form- because they actually help!

Prayer – remember how your Mom or Dad, or Grandparent used to say,
“When you are ready to cross the street, first stop, look (both ways),
and listen.” Good advice for starting to pray. Stop: be still, be
quiet, put down whatever you are doing, close your eyes if you need to,
quiet your hands from their busyness. Look: turn your attention toward
the eternal. There are lots of ways to do this: gaze at a sacred image,
repeat a mantra – a sacred phrase, reflect inwardly, read a line of
Scripture, ask God to be with you…. Listen: suspend your mind’s
constant chatter. Make space for God to speak (maybe not in words!).
Let there be some silence within you. And a fourth element: Say “thank
you” afterwards.

Fasting – stop eating if you are healthy and haven’t tried this; just
take a break from your meal routine, even for one day (Good Friday, Ash
Wednesday…). Remember the constant experience of all those in the world
who are seriously hungry. Notice your body’s cravings and demands and
say, “wait”. Then for Lent, eat mindfully and differently from your
usual. The tradition of “giving up something for Lent” was one way of
curbing self-indulgence while remembering God and the abundance most of
us enjoy without even noticing or being grateful. Doesn’t matter
whether you stop eating chocolate, drinking alcohol, watching TV after
midnight, or buying new lipsticks – do something meaningful for you
that says, “I am trying to live more aware of God and my neighbor’s
urgent needs, and more respectfully of my body and the world and God.

Self-examination and Confession – as the 12-Steps say, “take a fearless
moral inventory”. Look at your life, especially the most recent part
and own up to God and yourself what you have done wrong, what good you
have avoided doing. Then try to put right what you can. It is not
strictly necessary but it is amazingly helpful to verbalize these
shortcomings to another wise and faithful human being, maybe a priest.
This tells your inward self you are serious about trying to do better
and being honest about yourself. It also helps you believe you are
forgivable — and you are! Love is not never having to say you’re
sorry.

Alms-giving: So you usually give something to charity and your church?
Great. But in Lent give more generously, until you feel a pinch, until
it costs you something you might otherwise like to have or do. Give
thoughtfully. Pray over your checkbook and the choices it signals.
Notice the urgent needs near home, but also select one across the globe
to pay attention to – and then don’t feel you have to do everything for
everyone, just something for someone! It’s not just about blessing
someone else, but about enjoying the great blessing of actually
becoming more generous, a bit more like God.

Scripture-study: Open the Bible every day. Read a chunk. You might want
to pick one Gospel and read it through during Lent, a bit each day,
with time to think about what you’ve read. Does it raise questions?
Pick up a Bible commentary, go online, do some research – or just talk
to some other Bible readers (and your priest) about it. There are lots
of books and pamphlets that offer a Lenten day-by-day Bible reading and
reflection, too.

Go to Church: The Sundays of Lent remain feast days of Jesus Christ’s
resurrection on which one does not fast, though they remain a part of
this reflective and penitent season. Sundays remind us that we are a
loved and forgiven people trying always to live lives worthy of God,
and that we do that best together. Make time, too, for the special
journey of the heart in all the services of Holy Week. Each adds its
piece of the mystery and transformation, and deepens our understanding
of how we get from the cross to Easter in our own lives.

Have a blessed Lent!

The Rev. Dr. Jennifer Phillips

Lent begins . . .

“Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
  The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
  Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
  Isolated, with no before and after,
  But a lifetime burning in every moment
  And not the lifetime of one man only
  But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
  There is a time for the evening under starlight,
  A time for the evening under lamplight
  (The evening with the photograph album).
  Love is most nearly itself
  When here and now cease to matter.
  Old men ought to be explorers
  Here or there does not matter
  We must be still and still moving
  Into another intensity
  For a further union, a deeper communion
  Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
  The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
  Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.”

–TS Eliot, “East Coker” from The Four Quartets

“Search the darkness

Sit with your friends, don’t go back to sleep.
Don’t sink like a fish to the bottom of the sea.
Surge like an ocean, don’t scatter yourself like a storm.
Life’s waters flow from darkness. Search the darkness, don’t run from
it.
Night travelers are full of light, and you are too:
       don’t leave this companionship.
Be a wakeful candle in a golden dish, don’t slip into the dirt like
quicksilver.
The moon appears for night travelers, be watchful when the moon is
full.”

–Jelaluuddin Rumi (Persian Sufi poet born 1207c.e.)

This Lent, allow yourself to be reflective, to find some fallow time
each day to stop and notice what you are feeling, what the world looks
like at your fingertips, what the moment brings to you as blessing and
asks of you as challenge. If you are young, likely the temptation is to
hide in infinite distraction and entertainment – all the noise, color
and bustle of the beautiful and demanding world. Spend ten minutes a
day with everything turned off, perhaps even in the darkness and
silence, with no intention other than to simply be there and nowhere
else ith your full attention. If you are older, perhaps you may want to
ponder that provocative invitation of Eliot’s, “Old men/women should be explorers…still moving into another intensity, for a further union, a
deeper communion.” What might this mean for you now? I am reminded of St. Paul’s words: “What we may be (might be becoming) does not yet
appear…” so, as the tempest of these times swirls around us, we wait
for it with patience, wonder, curiosity and above all courage.

The age-old tools for seeking God and preparing for the future remain:
fasting (pausing from eating, but also eating mindfully, eating simply,
eating “lower on the food chain”, eating less, giving alms generously,
self-examination (repentance, confession, making amends), studying
Scripture, committing ourselves anew to prayer both personal and
congregational and receiving the Sacrament of Communion. They are
age-old because they have been and still are effective.