"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)

“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.