“Faith is the Measure”: A Lenten Thought

As I enter into the first full week of my Lenten journey I am pretty aware of the fact that I am distracted, tired and prefer doing something, anything other than focusing on the renewing of my faith which is one of the purposes of Lent. I may be one of those who suffer from SADD or SAHDD -- Spiritual Attention Deficit Disorder/Spiritual Attention Hyperactivity Deficit Disorder. Even though I have been practicing Centering Prayer and focused prayer for several years now, I still find it hard at times to be still and focus on the present moment and my relationship with God. Maybe you have the same problem.

If so, you and I are among the 99%. No, not the occupy Wall Street 99%, although I support their cause, but the 99% David Steindl-Rast refers to when he says: "Ninety-nine percent of the time we have an opportunity to be grateful for something. We just don't notice it. We go through our days in a daze".

I hate to admit it. But that’s me – going through my days in a daze. And because I am in a daze – either due to stress, or laziness, or lack of sleep or lack of intention or attention, I miss so much of what God wants to teach me and what life is all about. I miss so much to be grateful for.

That really is why I need Lent. It provides some structure to my life – forty days beginning with Ash Wednesday and running through Easter. It is punctuated with Sundays that remind me of the challenges and blessings of the journey and begins to come to an end with Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday* and Good Friday. I have devotional guides and the church to help with my journey. And the journey is all about slowing down, focusing and learning to see, again.

Juliet Benner reminds us that: “Spirituality is all about seeing. It is becoming aware of realities in which we are immersed but of which we are unaware….Spiritual vision requires learning to notice the presence of God within and around us.”

The Lenten journey, the spiritual journey, is all about learning to see, having our eyes opened to the wonder and the glory of life and God’s presence in it. It is about learning gratitude and to say alleluia! The 18^th century French Catholic Jesuit writer Jean-Pierre de Caussade, who is best known for his work Abandonment to Divine Providence (also translated as The Sacrament of the Present Moment), reminds us that “The present moment is always full of infinite treasures, it contains far more than you have the capacity to hold. Faith is the measure; what you find in the present moment will be according to the measure of your faith.” Thomas Merton says the same thing: “We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent, and God is shining through all the time.” And if I still didn’t hear it, there are other voices. The writer Frederick Buechner: “Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is…There is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always leaving you room to recognize or not to recognize him.” The theologian, Augustine: “God is always present to us and all things; it is that we, like blind persons, do not have eyes to see.”

The world around us, and the life we live in it, is saturated, alive with grace, if we have eyes to see. In fact, if the above voices and centuries of Christian witnesses are to be believed, there is more than we could ever hope to see. But let’s admit it – it is hard to really believe this. Our world of work, messy relationships, challenging classes, global and local tensions, economic concerns, health issues, etc. and etc., make it hard to believe that this world is “full of infinite treasures.”

This brings us back to this thing called “faith.” J.P. de Caussade reminds us that: “Faith is the measure; what you find in the present moment will be according to the measure of your faith.” A weak or shallow faith, a distracted or wrongfully preoccupied faith will find very little of meaning and evidence of the Divine in the present moment. Lent helps us to cultivate the faith that enables us to see. It grabs us by the collar and sits us down and takes our face in its hands and says: “Look! Look at what God is doing in the world and look at what God is doing in your life!”

Faith for the journey, is the willingness to trust God. Faith, in the Biblical sense, is fundamentally trust. It is trust in the character, the integrity, the care and compassion of God. It rests on the testimony of Scripture and Church – men and women who have come to know God in and through the rough and tumble experiences of life. For some, faith is robust and growing, for others it is weak and struggling. I like what Thomas Merton once said about faith. In one of his journals he is describing his many distractions, his weaknesses and the many things that can draw him away from God: “I am happy that I can at least want to love God. Perhaps that is all I’ve got, but it is already all that is essential. And He will take care of the rest.” Faith believes that in Jesus we meet one who knows our struggles, our pain, our experience of emptiness and abandonment, of growing faith and ebbing faith, and he still loves us and will work with that faith to bring us to maturity, if we want.

“What Will We Pay Attention To?” That really is the big question. The world and we are filled with so much noise, so many voices calling for our attention and time. We are constantly bombarded with images and sights that are supposed to tempt us, wow us, tease us, satisfy us.  How are we to hear and see in this vast sea of stimulation? And more specifically, how are we to see and hear and experience God in our midst? Lent helps us to cultivate a listening ear, to sharpen our vision, to sensitize our soul to the presence of the Holy in our midst.

One practical way to do that is to begin with gratitude. Many of us think that gratitude comes from happiness, but David Steindl-Rast reminds us that “It is not happiness that makes us grateful, but it is gratefulness that makes us happy.”

So, let me suggest that for the next week in your Lenten journey you try this exercise. When you wake up in the morning, instead of saying something like “Oh God! It is morning.”; try staying still for a moment and saying  or thinking) “Thank you God for this morning!” A grateful start to the morning can lead to a full day of gratitude; and turned into a daily practice, this grateful beginning creates a grateful life.

For the week, devote at least five to ten minutes each morning to considering life's gifts to you. If you already have or can set aside a special morning meditation time, great! If you have to go to work early or have classes or are immediately plunged into parenting duties or taking care of an invalid, choose some reminder — the first time you take a sip of a beverage in the morning; a chime on your cell phone; the coming to a stop at a red light; getting on or off the bus or train; something—to think of three things for which you are grateful. And then turn your awareness of your gifts into a time of prayer – thank God for the gifts in your life. And look for opportunities to tell someone. Maybe it will challenge them to see the giftedness of life and the graciousness of God.

Some other things to think about: 1) Is your life filled with too much noise to hear God? What are some things you could do that would free up some space to breathe deeply again? You might want to talk with a trusted friend about your decision to do less; 2) What do you think God delights in when God thinks about you? Why does God think that you were special enough to send Jesus for you? What is your response to this grace?

===========

*Also known as Holy Thursday, Covenant Thursday, Great & Holy Thursday, and Thursday of Mysteries, is the Christian feast or holy day falling on the Thursday before Easter that commemorates the Last Supper of Jesus Christ with the Apostles as described in the Gospels ( Mark 14:12-25; Matthew 26:17-19; Luke 22:7-13). It is the fifth day of Holy Week, and is preceded by Holy Wednesday and followed by Good Friday.

Being Healed

I think that many of us avoid or fear Lent and its call to spiritual self-examination and change in the same way that we avoid going to the dentist or doctor. It is a mixture of fear and pride. Fear that we might discover something that will unsettle us (we waited too long to get that growth checked and now it is infected; or we waited too long to treat the cancer and it is at an advanced stage) or cause us pain (an impacted molar, the need for a root canal or the simple lecture from the dentist that we should be having regular check-ups) or pride (“I can take care of myself”; “I’m not feeling well, but I will get better”; “The doctor is a quack, what does he know?”). And so we stay away.

When it comes to Lent, the penitential, reflective season of spiritual examination and call to renewal and starting again, we think it is nice for some people, but we really don’t need it. We may not be what we should be in our relationship with God, but we are certainly not that bad.

But Lent doesn’t let us off the hook that easily. It starts with Ash Wednesday. On Ash Wednesday we are reminded of our mortality (”From dust you came and to dust you will return”) and our sins (“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin” Psalm 51:1-2). In fact the traditional reading of Psalm 51 is full of words like “transgressions”, “judgment”, “guilty”, “broken and contrite heart”, etc. Words that we like to avoid or fear. And it continues through the forty days as we are brought face to face with the goodness and claim of God on our lives and our continual falling short and our need for God’s help if there is ever going to be any change and if we are ever going to experience the fullness of life that God calls us to. It is easy to want to avoid Lent. Fear and pride, as well as sloth and preoccupation with other, seemingly more pressing things get in the way.

But the Season of Lent, like the regular visits to the dentist and doctor, is intended to help us and keep us spiritually healthy. Yes, we are confronted with our mortality and our sin and our repeated laziness or lack of interest in spiritual things or our preoccupation with temporal and more immediate pleasures and concerns, but at the same time we are reminded over and over again of God’s love and grace and God’s coming alongside of us as we travel this Lenten road towards greater self-awareness and transformation.

Several years ago, Edward Hays wrote a Lenten devotional guide entitled The Lenten Pharmacy: Daily Healing Therapies. It is a quirky, enticing book, like many Hays writes.  In it he focuses on Jesus the Healer. Each day, like a good doctor, Hays offers up a prescription to encourage the reader to explore his/her life and open themselves up to the spiritual healing Jesus offers. Along the way we are introduced to diseases like: “Tomorrowitis” – that procrastination fungus the postpones reform until next year’s Lent or even until one’s deathbed; “Sabbath Dis-ease” – that restlessness of always having to be productive or busy and failing to slow down and be present to the God-filled moment; “Templeitis” – the half-hearted religious life that puts its trust in ritual and routine, but neglects the passionate embracing of a relationship with God that shows itself in a transformed life.

All of these diseases afflict us as they do the people Jesus meets in the Gospel stories. And like a compassionate, sensitive healer, Jesus wants to bring us from dis-ease to ease; from illness to health; from a so-so life to a full and holy life. But if that is going to happen, it requires a response from us. And often our response is like the man who said to Jesus: “I believe, help my unbelief.” And in that honesty healing takes place.

Jesus once told a story which the physician-turned-Gospel writer Luke records in his gospel. It is found in Luke 18:9-14. Here is Eugene Peterson’s retelling of the story in contemporary English in his paraphrase The Message: ^9-12[Jesus] told his next story to some who were complacently pleased with themselves over their moral performance and looked down their noses at the common people: "Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax man. The Pharisee posed and prayed like this: 'Oh, God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, crooks, adulterers, or, heaven forbid, like this tax man. I fast twice a week and tithe on all my income.'  ¹³"Meanwhile the tax man, slumped in the shadows, his face in his hands, not daring to look up, said, 'God, give mercy. Forgive me, a sinner.'" ¹⁴Jesus commented, "This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you're going to end up flat on your face, but if you're content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself."

In this parable, Jesus gives us a prescription for beginning and continuing the Lenten journey. It starts with humility and an admission that we need God’s mercy if we are ever going to be the people we are intended to be and if God is ever going to be glorified in our lives.

The disciplines of the journey – prayer, Bible reading, silence, fasting, worship, service – are ways to help us grow in humility and wholeness. Don’t procrastinate or think that you are too busy to slow down or hide in your comfortable or safe religious routine. True healing and wholeness comes with a cost and that cost is being humble enough to place yourself in the caring, healing hands of Jesus. That is the Lenten challenge and that is the promise of discipleship. Happy Lenten journey!

"The One You Feed"

There is a familiar Native American story called “The Two Wolves.” One version goes like this: One evening, an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all. One wolf is “Evil.” It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, and superiority. The other wolf is “Good.” It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, faith…and contentment.”The grandson was amazed at this. You could see it in his face. You could also see that he was puzzling over what he had just been told. Finally, he could no longer restrain himself, so he asked, “Which wolf wins?”The old Cherokee grandfather smiled slightly and softly replied, “The one you feed.”

The story reminds us that we all make choices in our life. And the consequences of those choices can sometimes spell the difference between joy and peace and sorrow and regret.

The season of Lent is also about making choices. Lent is an invitation. It is a call to reflect, refocus, refresh, and renew. It invites us to slow down and pause in the midst of life and to look within at the war that often is going on deep within us, or maybe not so deep within. We all carry wounds and scars from this battle. For some of us it seems like it is an eternal struggle with no way out. We have tried to calm the beast that rages within and also to fight against the ones that attack us from without, but we never quite seem to get the upper hand. This is even true for those of us who claim to follow Jesus, the Prince of peace.

When I look at my own life, I find that “evil” usually gets the upper hand because I forget to feed my soul. Instead, I fall into the habit of feeding my fears, my distrust, my anger, my resentment, my insecurity, my …. I feed them through allowing myself to see things as urgent, as normal or usual, as acceptable, as reasonable or as all that there is.

Grace alone can bring about a lasting change in our lives, a transformation of our deepest self. Grace alone can help us to push back against the darkness. Without grace – simply relying on our power alone -- we cannot be faithful to the divine calling and direction God has in mind for us from the beginning. What we need to do is create space for grace. And to do that means feeding those things that help create that space and make the gift of grace a reality in our lives. Only then can we come to know the serenity, the peace, the contentment that Jesus promises.

Someone has written: “If everyone is running around wringing their hands and crying, and you are cool, calm, and collected, you don’t understand the situation.” To live with serenity/contentment does not necessarily mean that outward conditions have changed. Serenity is an inner peace that is present even in difficult surroundings. It is a deep, inner sense that all will ultimately be well. The experience goes beyond our systems of emotional or rational intelligence. It is an intuitive or spiritual knowing that produces in us the inner experience of calmness, clarity, and awareness. In serenity, we learn to live more fully in the now moment rather than being bound to the past or living anxiously in the future. And because God is present in the now, God is present with us in the now, and no matter what we face, God will be there with us.

But as the story above reminds us, this awareness, this reality, this settled and settling conviction doesn’t just happen, it requires a response, a choice, a decision, an effort on our part. “The one you feed.” We can feed our fears and illusions or resentment or anger or self-pity, and they can continue to dominate our lives and overwhelm us with a hopelessness that can paralyze us; OR we can feed or cultivate that relationship with the God of peace who wants to give us LIFE and help us see our daily lives in a new and liberating light.

So if you have made the decision to feed your soul this Lent, here are some things to focus on: Slow Down – just as it is hard to enjoy a meal on the run, you need to allow time for rest and meditation; Reflect -- on where you are in life and what God, through Scripture, has to say about where you can and should be; Practice – the disciplines of prayer, silence, Bible Reading, worship and service; Don’t Give Up – nothing worth achieving comes easily and without effort; Live Thankfully – realize that each day, each breath, each opportunity is a gift God is giving you to grow in personhood and fullness; and Remember Grace – the God who invites you into relationship with himself also provides the resources to grow in that relationship. When we fall or fail, God is still there, ready to forgive and restore. While Grace is free, it is not cheap; it requires our surrender and willingness to receive it and live in it. Grace is the good news that, in Christ, I am more loved than I ever thought possible and that there is nothing in this life that I will ever have to face that God will not be there to face it with me.

Recalibration

Today is the first day in the Season of Lent, the forty weekdays leading up to Easter. I know that for many people “Lent” carries a negative tone and means self-denial and giving up something. And that is part of the tradition of this season. Lent is a time for introspection, to pause, reflect, reassess, repent, and refocus our relationship with God and the life that God has called us to in Christ. And to make time to do that and to focus on the deeper side of life often means that we have to carve out some space in our busy schedules by giving up something so that we can use that time, or be reminded by that sacrifice, to use the time to reflect on some deeper spiritual realities. As the British mystic and writer on the spiritual life, Evelyn Underhill put it: “Lent is a good moment for…a spiritual stocktaking; a pause, a retreat from life’s busy surface to its solemn deeps.” It is a sort of mid-course correction or as I have come to think of it this year – Lent is a time for recalibration, a spiritual recalibration.

            Recently, I took my car in to the shop for a tune-up. It was running a bit rough and I knew that the gas mileage and performance of the car would be improved if I had it tuned up. In the same way, Lent is a time to recalibrate our soul. To calibrate means to “correlate the readings of (an instrument) with those of a standard in order to check the instrument's accuracy.” In other words, there is a standard and we see how well something is performing in accordance with the standard. And when something gets out of calibration, we need to recalibrate it.

            I see Lent as something like that. It is a time for me to pause and see how well I am measuring up to the standard of what it means to follow Jesus, to be a disciple. In other words, how does my life measure up to Christ since Jesus calls me to follow him and learn from him and to imitate him?

            I could skip Lent. I could simply rock along on the way to Easter just like I could forget about tuning up my car and put up with the rough ride. But if I do, I will miss something.

            Lent is a time of returning to God. It is a time to reflect on where we have been looking for joy, peace and satisfaction as we make our journey through life. What standards, what instruments, what measures have we been using?  Have we sought it in the people and things that are around us? Do we really know what we are looking for, what we want, what we need, how to recognize it when we find it? It is so easy to use the standards, the measurements of the people and society around us and get hopelessly lost, frustrated or disillusioned. Without stopping to recalibrate, it is easy to get the wrong readings and forget that only God can give us what we really need. It is easy for our life, our thinking, our pursuits to get out of sync and miss the deeper things in life. This is one of the reasons we need Lent – to recalibrate our spiritual life.

Of course, we are not cars or instruments that can be so easily recalibrated. We can deny it, fight it or fake it. The choice is really up to us.

This brings us back to something I said at the beginning. Lent for many of us is frightening. It is frightening because it reminds us that to get to Easter – Life, we have to pass through Death. Henri Nouwen puts it this way: “Yes, Lord, I have to die—with you, through you, and in you—and thus become ready to recognize you when you appear to me in your resurrection. There is so much in me that needs to die: false attachments, greed and anger, impatience and stinginess. O Lord, I am self-centered, concerned about myself, my career, my future, my name and fame. …O Lord, make this Lenten season different from other ones. Let me find you again.”

What needs to die in you?

Spiritual recalibration means work. Through the Scripture readings for the Season, the devotional books written especially for Lent, the worship services, through regular times of silence and solitude and reflection, we recalibrate our souls – clean, repair and reset them. We correlate/align our understanding and measure of what makes up a good life, a satisfying life, a meaningful and fulfilling life with the standard/will of our Creator. And with that recalibration we are ready to see how Easter is more than bunny rabbits, chocolate eggs and pretty bonnets. It is the Good News. It is the Good News of what it means to be truly alive.

So I hope that as you journey through Lent this year you will experience a spiritual recalibration of your soul and that, in the midst of the hard soul-work involved, you will know peace and joy.