"Superfluous" -- A Lenten Thought

I suppose you are like me and have had times when something gets stuck in your head – a word, a song, an image – and it keeps going round and round. Sometimes it is simply annoying, other times, for example in the middle of the night when you need to rest before a very busy day, it can almost be maddening. If you have never had one (or more) of those experiences you are very fortunate. But I would guess that most of us know what I am talking about.

But I think the experience of getting something stuck in your head can also be an enlightening, even revelatory, experience because it forces you to look at it and ask questions. In the last couple of days the word “superfluous” has been stuck in my head. My concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English tells me that the word comes from two words that have been conjoined; one meaning “more” or “over” (super) and the other meaning “to flow” (fluere). Together the word “superfluous” is used as an adjective and means “more than enough, redundant, needless.” Another source simply has “overflowing bounty.”

Now, I’m not sure why that word got stuck in my head. I probably read or heard it somewhere, but, unlike that word, song or image that gets stuck in your head and won’t let you sleep, this word has helped me think about my Lenten journey.

Lent, with its invitation to pause and reflect on life and the spiritual life (and really these can’t be separated for someone who takes both of them seriously), really has a lot to do with the “superfluous.”

Lent is a challenge to live more simply and fully in God’s presence. It asks us to take a serious look at those things that control or direct or lay claim to our life. And let’s admit it, for most of us, it is our work or our studies or our families or our pursuits (whether they be shopping, watching TV, sports or fitness, etc) that really are the primary focus of our lives. And then we are asked to look at whether or not these things lead us into a deeper relationship with God or away from that relationship. And many of us would have to admit that it is a mixed bag. There are some things that help us grow in that relationship and there are some things that pull us away from that intimate relationship with God. And here is where the word “superfluous” comes in for me.

As I look at my life there are many things that are superfluous in the sense of “needless.” They are more than what is needed if I am going to experience and live a fulfilling life. And honestly, they are things that my world, my culture, my society, my insecure and unloved ego tells me are needed if I am to be happy or popular or safe or well-respected, etc. etc. But they really don’t meet the deep need in my life which is for a sense of well-being and wholeness and joy. They promise a lot, but really don’t deliver in any ultimate sense. They can’t because they are “superfluous” to what is needed for the meaning and joy of life. They can often be enjoyed and used, but at the end of the day, they are superfluous in the deeper search for contentment and satisfaction. They are superfluous/needless/useless because only God can supply what I really need at the center of my being.

Lent invites us to realize that underneath all of these distractions and empty promises there is a call to simplicity that understand that what is fundamentally needed for life is the cultivation of a life with God at the center. As Jesus reminds us, we are to seek above everything else the will of God (Matthew 6:33). When we align our will with that Will we see the real place of the things that we have been so feverishly pursuing. They aren’t all evil, but they really are “superfluous” to the meaning of life and to what brings ultimate wholeness and joy. 

But there is another “superfluous” or “superfluity” that comes to mind as I reflect on Lent. And this one is the “superfluous-ness” of Grace. We see it in the Jesus’ parable of the loving father who lavishes grace (love, acceptance, the re-establishment of a fractured relationship) on his returning prodigal child as well as on his stay-at-home uptight, callous child (Luke 15:11-32). We see it in the Apostle Paul’s repeated wonder at the extravagant grace of God shown to sinful, world-weary men and women in the God News that is the Gospel. Yes, God’s grace is “superfluous” in that it is “more than enough” and an “overflowing bounty.” 

It is this “superfluous” grace that calls to us in Lent and reminds us that our deepest longings and genuine needs are only found in a relationship with God. Lent challenges us to remember, or perhaps discover for the first time, that we are loved by God and that that love is a redeeming love. To surrender to that God is, in the words of Thomas Merton, to “quit keeping score altogether and surrender yourself with all your sinfulness to God who sees neither the score nor the scorekeeper but only his child redeemed in Christ.” To rediscover that love through pausing for Lent to look honestly at our life is grace, grace that is “overflowing bounty.” It is a reminder that dependence on the God of love and mercy revealed in Jesus is the most important lesson that we can learn if we are to really experience Life in all its fullness. 

But it isn’t always an easy lesson because there is so much in our lives that struggles against that truth. Joan Chittister has written, “Dependence on God may be what is lacking in a society where consumerism and accumulation have become the root diseases of a world in which everything is not enough and nothing satisfies.” But here again we have Grace. If we will turn and make the effort to reconnect with God, we will find that God is already there with outstretched arms to bring us back into relationship. That is Superfluous Grace – an overflowing bounty.

“God’s Desire” – A Lenten Thought

In his book on Jesus’ parables, Stories Jesus Still Tells, the well-known pastor/preacher John Claypool relates the story of his daughter, Laura. When she was four, Claypool was attempting to put her to bed one night, but she was like most four-year-olds. To avoid going to bed, Laura took three trips to the bathroom, asked for a drink of water, wanted another story told, needed Dad to put the light on, heard a sound, and so on. Claypool finally took care of his daughter’s needs and went upstairs to write. He was deep into his writing when he could tell Laura was standing at the door of his study, staring at him. He hadn’t seen her or heard anything, he just knew that she was there. Frustrated, he turned around and said, with a bit of anger in his voice, “What do you want me to do, Laura?” Laura came over and stood beside her father, grabbed his arm, and said, “Nothing Daddy, I just want to be close to you.”  

As I think about that story, especially during this season of Lent, I can see that Laura may have been speaking God’s words to us: “I don’t want you to do anything. I just want to be next to you.” I wonder how many times a day God tries to get our attention, to slow us down, to quiet us long enough so that we can hear God’s whisper. 

I wrote recently of the danger our busyness and over-commitments pose to our personal and spiritual lives. Usually, we feel that we have no choice. Life is just like that. If we could, we would get off the treadmill, slow down and take it easy. And we keep telling ourselves that someday in the future – on the weekend, when we get a vacation, or when we retire, things will be different. But will they? I have been down that road as a career missionary, pastor and teacher. I took a subtle pride (it wouldn’t have been “spiritual” to say so) in the fact that I worked 18 hour days, six (and sometimes seven) days a week. I was busy and I was helping people! But now I wonder how much I missed, especially in my relationship with God. I think I have to agree with Marshall Jenkins who writes: “We assume that it is the crazy pace of our lives that is killing us when really it’s our inattention to our deepest desire, the desire for God.”  

Henri Nouwen illustrates this point well (the danger inherent in our busyness and distractions) in a meditation he wrote when he returned to the States for a visit from the L’Arche Daybreak Community in Toronto, Canada, where he shared the final years of his life with a group of people with disabilities: “What most strikes me, being back in the United Sates, is the full force of the restlessness, the loneliness, and the tension that holds so many people. The conversations I had today were about spiritual survival. So many of my friends feel overwhelmed by the many demands made on them; few feel the inner peace and joy they so much desire….There seems to be a mountain of obstacles preventing people from being where their hearts want to be. It is so painful to watch and experience. The astonishing thing is that the battle for survival has become so “normal” that few people really believe that it can be different.” [“The Road to Daybreak,” in Seeds of Hope: A Henri Nouwen Reader, ed. Robert Durback (NY: Doubleday, 1997), 54] 

What about you? Do you believe that it can be different? 

In Claypool’s story about his daughter Laura and her desire simply “to be” present with her father, we have a reminder that God wants us more than our activity. God desires us. And our response in return should be to desire God.  

For years, I have been carrying around in my wallet a quote from the great Scottish theologian P.T. Forsyth. It is a warning to all of us who get caught up in busyness, even the busyness of “ministry.” He writes, “It is possible to be so active in the service of Christ as to forget to love him. Many preach Christ but get in front of him by the multiplicity of their own works. It will be your ruin if you do! Christ can do without your works; what he wants is you.” 

Like John Claypool’s daughter, Laura, God wants us. He wants to get our attention, to slow us down, to be quiet long enough to hear his call to us. And if we will listen, we will hear that: “The heart of [God] loves us as we are and not as we should be, beyond worthiness and unworthiness, beyond fidelity and infidelity; He loves us in the morning sun and the evening rain without caution, regret, boundary, limit or breaking point.” (Brennan Manning, The Signature of Jesus, pp. 125-126). 

This is one of the many gifts of Lent. It breaks into our life with a reminder to slow down, be quiet, allow ourselves to be reoriented and refocused and open to God’s presence in our life. If we will pay attention we will see and experience things we have never seen or experienced: we will be more fully alive; we will experience life in its depth; we will be more rooted and less rushing; and we will learn how to be more whole, more loving, more caring, more like Christ. 

Happy Lent!

Slowing Down – A Lenten Thought

In a New York Times article I was reading today (“For Impatient Web Users, An Eye Blink is Just Too Long to Wait”, March 1, 2012), I learned from Google experts that we are a very impatient bunch when it comes to waiting on our computers. The article says that for most of us, waiting for a page to load, even if it is 400 milliseconds-- literally the blink of an eye-- it is too long. Google and other tech companies are therefore on a new quest for speed. The research shows that the average person doesn’t like to wait more than 250 milliseconds (a millisecond is a thousandth of a second) for a website to load. If it takes longer for a page to load, the reader will likely move on to another, hopefully faster, site. Speed means business and money. 

Of course, I didn’t need the article to tell me that. I can see it in myself. And it is all a part of a larger habit of always being in a hurry. I am one of those who doesn’t like to wait – at a traffic light, the line at the grocery store, for a meal, for a website to load, etc. And yet I realize that I have to wait. It is part of life to wait. And slowly I have learned some very valuable lessons while waiting. That is, if I am willing to be taught. I have learned that sometimes in my rush I have failed to listen to the other person or notice their hurt; I have made mistakes because I was working too fast; my stress level goes up because I have failed to slow down; and even more enlightening is the realization that in my busyness I failed to connect with another person who had the potential to enrich my life. Even in my prayers, I sometimes find that am either too busy to pray or if I pray I rush through them. And in the process, I miss an encounter with God.

Now, I have to admit that I’m not quite as bad as I used to be in the busyness category and I attribute that to spending more time working on breaking my busyness habit and learning new ones. Henri Nouwen once wrote: “You don't think your way into a new kind of living. You live your way into a new kind of thinking.” Practicing the disciplines of silence and meditation are helping to create new ways of thinking about life and busyness. And that is why times like Lent are so valuable. They remind us of the importance of slowing down and trying to be present to the moment. Just when I start speeding up again, Lent (or Advent) is like a speed bump on the spiritual journey and helps me to apply the brakes and slow down again and settle into a more reasonable pace of life. Lent reminds me that the real meaning of life is not found in its speed or activism, but in its depth and that there is no way to go deep in life without spending time with God.

It is easy in our production-focused society and the constant bombardment of stimuli from ads, entertainment, other people and events to slip into the illusion that being busy is being fulfilled or meaningful or important. Perhaps one of the reasons why it is easy to be taken in by this is because of our fear of boredom. Maybe that is why we keep so busy.

For those who care about growing in their spiritual life, of getting in touch with who they really are, busyness and constant activity can spell ruin.

So, let me challenge you to slow down so that you can listen to the God who is calling you home to that place within that is at once our own heart and God’s own dwelling. We know that busyness can kill us physically by taking its toll in stress and high blood pressure and coronary disease; but we also need to understand that busyness can also kill us spiritually.

Take some time to reflect on the prayer below. It comes from Edward Hays (Pray All Ways: A Book of Daily Worship Using All Your Senses, pp. 189-190). As you pray it reflect on its images; notice those places where what he has to say connect with your life; and, most importantly, ask yourself what God is saying to you through these words. Happy Lent!

A Prayer for Someone in a Hurry

Lord, help me this day
      to slow down.
It will not be easy for you-even you-
      to slow me down
     for I seem caught up in the traffic-rush of life.
I rush through my prayers,
      hurry through my meals
     and run from one thing to another.
But I have faith
      that my choices and your graces together
      can change my racetrack style of life.
I know, Lord, even before you whisper it in my ear,

that you are waiting for me

in the slower, quieter things of life.

Teach me, Lord of Life,

how to eat my food with awareness;
show me how to walk deliberately
rather than to run constantly,

how to truly visit and be present
rather than merely exchanging words.

Help me, Divine Friend,

to take my time in praying to you.

Show me that it is good

just to "waste" time with you

just enjoying a sunset or a friendship.

With your presence and assistance,

I will attempt to do all things with mindfulness:
slowly, carefully

and fully aware of what I am  doing.

Then, with your grace, I shall find you, my

God,

in those unhurried and mindful moments.

Amen (said very slowly)