by Bill Borror
We all have come to the point that after trying everything else to get our internet, computers, or phones to start working again, we simply must shut them down and reboot. The good news is that often does the trick. It’s not magic (even though most of us do not understand why it works). Sometimes addition by subtraction is the solution.
Lent invites us to deny our appetites’ a little in order to expand our hearts and lives for God. It is a temporary saying no to the good things of this life, to taste the better eternal things of Christ. It’s a rebooting if you would of our ordinary routines, in order to glimpse the extraordinary mysteries of God all around us, that we tend to miss in the course of our busy, nosey day to day existence.
I encourage each of you to consider giving up something you enjoy for Lent and setting aside the money that you would spend on that pleasure and donating it to those who are in need. Remember this is something done out of freedom and what you give up is totally between you and God. However, it can also be a corporate discipline done by a family, couple, or community. The very process of coming up with a mutually agreed upon sacrifice and then deciding on where to give the money can be a Lenten exercise in forbearance itself.
Perhaps even more important than giving something up for Lent, is that you consider taking on something. The following are few suggestions:
- Try adding fifteen minutes of prayer and reading the Bible to your daily schedule.
- Read a book on Christian spirituality (i.e. Merton’s No Man is an Island.)
- Take an extra few minute to look around at the beauty of creation.
- Look for the face of Christ in the people around you.
- Speak a kind word to a stranger or person in distress.
- Visit someone who could use encouragement.
- Add ten minutes of purposeful silence to your day-remember God is always there.
Lent is remembering we are dust and to dust we shall return. But it is also a leaning into the truth we are also the children of the living God.
- Sermons available at http://www.residentexile.
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Looking for hospitality inspiration? We have an entire resource page dedicated to hospitality. Find recipes and reflections on numerous hospitality topics, including Celtic hospitality, prayers, and liturgies. Click on Hospitality for more!
The Season of Lent is the season of the Church Year that allows us to reflect on the Wilderness experience of Jesus following his baptism. The 40 days Jesus spent before his ministry began. It also gives us the opportunity to prepare our hearts for the crucifixion and for resurrection.
What’s the Invitation? What is the Holy Spirit inviting me to this Lent? What is Jesus inviting each of us to this Lenten Season?
At this time, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. The moment he came out of the water, he saw the sky split open and God’s Spirit, looking like a dove, come down on him. Along with the Spirit, a voice: “You are my Son, chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life.”
At once, this same Spirit pushed Jesus out into the wild. For forty wilderness days and nights he was tested by Satan. Wild animals were his companions, and angels took care of him.
After John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee preaching the Message of God: “Time’s up! God’s kingdom is here. Change your life and believe the Message.” MARK 1:9-15 The Message
At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, 13 and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted[a] by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.
After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” MARK 1:9-15 NIV
Mark is the short and intense Gospel…we don’t get all the details of the temptations like we do in Matthew and Luke. You can also read Matthew 4 and Luke 4:1-13
What do you notice from this passage? What are the invitations you see or feel for your Lenten practice this year?
I notice that Jesus has been told he is BELOVED. He has his identity secured in his baptism. He is greatly loved and not alone. How can I receive that invitation this Lent? What do I need to do to accept and live into my Belovedness?
I need to go back to my practice of being wrapped in God’s love. I have a special blanket that I use to represent God’s love for me. I need to use it DAILY to wrap it around me and truly experience the love of God.
What things remind you that you are God’s Beloved?
I notice that Lent starts in the Wilderness.
This year, I am really noticing the wilderness …In both the harsh reality of wilderness and the need I have for the beauty of nature in wilderness.
The wilderness of the world! I am feeling the uncertainty of life….I have a lot of anxiety about where our country is heading and I feel the weight of all the suffering due to hatred and violence and war. …it’s a bleak unsafe wilderness. I need to acknowledge this reality and allow Jesus to hold it for me! I remember that I am not alone in the wilderness!
How about you? How is your life feeling?
How do you view wilderness? How are you viewing wilderness right now?
One thing about being in the wilderness…it invites us to pay attention. To notice. You don’t survive very long in extreme wilderness situations or even on a simple hike in the forest if you aren’t paying attention…Paying attention to the path, to the weather, to dangers that might be ahead.
And we get an invitation to be prepared for the wilderness. Did I wear the right shoes? Did I bring water and snacks, do I have the right outerwear in case the weather changes?
How are we being invited to pay attention this Lent? What do I need to pay more attention to in the days ahead?
I feel the Lord’s invitation to get outside and get to places of beauty. To walk and breathe and notice. It’s often so easy to just sit and scroll on my phone. Or to just get caught up in the list of things to do around the house that I don’t stop and breathe. I don’t get outside.
What if you invite someone to join you for walks in Lent. It could be as simple as a walk around your neighborhood. It could be a walk in a nearby park. Or plan a special walk or hike in a place a bit farther away that you and your family go on to reflect on Jesus and the beauty around you.
Jesus wasn’t alone in the wilderness! This gives me hope!
Yes he was tempted by the devil, but THE SPIRIT was with him. And the angels were caring for him and the wild animals were there too.
Who and what has Jesus put in our wilderness to care and comfort us?
I need to notice the people and animals and even the angels and thank God for these!
An Invitation to Be present, to Notice, to get outside in the actual wilderness. An invitation to know that I am greatly loved by God and I am not alone! I will ponder these invitations in the days ahead and put them into practice too.
What is the invitation of the wilderness for you?
God of the Wilderness, we receive the Invitation to join you on the journey this Lent. Open our hearts to fall more in love with you over these coming days. Help us to see the beauty around us in the wilderness. Help us to seek you and know that you are with us even in the harshness of our world. Thank you Jesus that we are not alone and we are greatly loved. AMEN
Check out 40 Days Toward Love... a Prayer Kit for Lent that uses prayer hearts to pray with each day. A personal/family version can be downloaded or there is one for churches too. This can be used any time, not just for Lent.
by Rodney Marsh
“Jesus was completely changed” Mk 9:2
It seems it was Jesus’ habit to go, by himself, to pray daily in a ‘lonely place’. This day was different. Peter had, six days earlier, told Jesus that his disciples believed Jesus was the promised ‘coming King’. In response, Jesus’ words became dark and he predicted his death. Would his followers continue to follow him? After all he also spoke about a ‘resurrection’. Peter’s interpreter (Mark) tells us what happened on the seventh day after Peter’s confession (sundown day 6), Jesus led Peter, James and John up a mountain. There Jesus’ friends experienced a blazing vision of Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah, complete with an enveloping cloud and the voice of God saying, “This is my son, and I love him. Listen to what he says!”(v7). For Jesus and his disciples this was a reaffirmation of Jesus’ baptismal status as “my son” and a promise of God’s support (“I love him”). Moses and Elijah had both received mountain top commissions to rescue God’s people, so God’s words also included an affirmation that Jesus and his friends were on the right track and Peter et al (including you and me) should do (thats was to ‘listen’ means) what Jesus’ says. The lessons of Big Change Sunday: Like Jesus, we too daily need, and will daily receive, affirmation from God that we are a much loved child of God – if we are willing to go to pray with Jesus in a lonely place. Like Jesus, every day we will receive affirmation that we are on the right track and will receive strength for the journey – if we are willing to go to pray with Jesus in a lonely place. Like Peter, James & John these gifts will come after we name Jesus’ as our Lord and are willing to continue to follow where he leads.
Climbing Mountains with Jesus
Mountains – I’ve seen a few, climbed some (little ones),
Mountain top experiences – I’ve had a few, but they never lasted,
When I met Jesus I discovered there were lots more mountains to climb – big ones, and every day too,
I am still climbing. Every day,
Every day the track gets steeper and narrower but so much easier because, though,
I still cannot see the path ahead, my shepherd always gently guides me in the right direction,
And on the Jesus’ trail, I have never been afraid or alone.
Resources to enrich your lenten celebration. Includes downloads of: A Journey Into Wholeness, Lent/Easter Prayer Cards, and 40 Daily Ideas Guide for Lent.
by Jenny Gehman
“Please place your seat backs and tray tables in their full upright position.”
My husband and I recently flew to Colorado to celebrate the completion of my training in spiritual direction. Our round-trip flight meant we experienced two departures and two arrivals. Two ascents and two descents for a total of four times hearing the flight attendant’s voice over the loudspeaker instructing us to assume our upright positions. All in preparation to depart or arrive.
This got me thinking about postures that prepare us for what is to come. I began wondering if the airline instructions stood in sharp contrast to those Jesus might have received for his round-trip journey to Earth. Had he come in his full upright position as King of kings and Lord of lords, he never would have fit. Earth cannot hold him.
To prepare for his arrival, he had to assume not an upright position but a bent one. And bend he did, into the tiniest of seeds in a woman’s dark womb.
When the time came for his departure, Jesus bent yet again. “Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father” (John 13:1). So what did he do? He bent low to the ground — into the shape not of seed but slave — and washed his disciples’ feet in an act of love.
In a devotional I read, the author said God is bent on loving us. She meant that God is determined to love God’s people.
But the word rang in my ears differently. I heard it in reference to the ways God loves us: by bending and descending, by lowering and leaning in.
We serve an upright God who is bent on bending. Bent on loving us. And who has a bent for the bent ones. A bent for the burdened ones. A bent for the ones brought low.
In the gospels, we encounter Jesus physically bending to the ground to protect a woman caught in adultery from the upright ones about to cast stones (John 8).
We hear him defend a prostitute, bent on washing his feet with her tears (Luke 7).
We watch in wonder as he bends rigid rules and on the sabbath heals a woman who had been physically bent for 18 long years (Luke 13).
We marvel with the multitudes on that momentous day when Jesus blessed the bent — the meek and the mourning, the merciful ones, the -persecuted, pure and poor (Matthew- 5).
God is bent on bending and lifting up the low. To enter the doorway of the suffering, the sinners, the sidelined and the sick, our Savior stooped.
I find this to be very good news for me — for us — when we find ourselves, as Edmund Sears penned in “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear,” bent beneath life’s pressing load.
Like the woman in Luke 13, my body was bent for 18 long years. I was brought to my knees by feet that could no longer support me and grief that kept grounding me. I don’t know what has bent you, friend — poverty, pressure or pain. I don’t know your journey, past or present, that has laid you low. But what I do know, and what I have experienced, is that our precarious bent position is the very posture that prepares us both for the arrival of God to us and our departure back to God.
It’s not the rigid or right but the bent and bowed who are blessed.
As the Holy Spirit kindly reminded me, this posture prepares us not only for God but for one another.
As I prayed for shalom in several relationships that have rubbed me wrong, I was moved to confess the areas where, in my own sense of rightness, I have become stiff-necked and straight. As I asked for the grace to bend, I realized anew that sometimes we need to stoop in order to see when we can’t see straight.
An upright position may be the preferred one for a plane, train or automobile. But in our walkabout daily lives, a bent frame may serve us best.
God is bent on loving us. It’s how -Jesus came and how he left and how he serves us still.
It just may be that when we are bent, broken or brought low, we are in a prepared place to enter a portal of grace, precisely postured for who and what awaits.
*Reprinted with permission from Anabaptist World magazine, AnabaptistWorld.org.*
Join Christine Sine on March 2nd 10a-12p PST (check my timezone) or watch the recording later.
What do you long for as you look towards Easter?
How can we create Beauty from the ashes of the past?
The Lenten season is meant to be a time for reflection, retreat and refocusing in preparation for our celebration of Easter. Yet most of us find it hard to take time out of our busy schedules for this much needed reorientation time.
Join Christine Sine for a morning of scripture reading and quiet reflection that will be for many of us a much needed oasis of quiet in the midst of our chaotic lives.
It’s time to get ready for Lent and as I said in my Meditation Monday: Ready for Lent? yesterday. “I almost missed it. Getting ready that is. Ash Wednesday is Wednesday February 14th. Yep! Valentine’s Day. An unfortunate juxtaposition some may think, but for others like me it is perfect.
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life” (John 3:16)
“You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: You must love your neighbor as you love yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.” (Matthew 22:37, 38 CEB)
These two verses hold the essence of God’s love and of the purpose of Lent from my perspective. Lent is meant to be about learning to love God more fully and expressing that love out into the world that God loves.
As I say in my Meditation Monday Lent is a season we should take very seriously, so it needs some serious planning and creative thought. Now that my eyes are centered on it I am having lots of fun, and serious thought planning. I have pulled out my rock collection and paint pens and am painting a focus rock for the season using my theme “For Love of the World God Did Foolish Things”. Why foolish you may ask. Well April 1st, April Fools Day, is the day after Easter Sunday. I have also pulled out my finger labyrinth making materials and am looking forward to making finger labyrinths first with our small community next Monday and then with our church a couple of weeks later.
I am also starting to prepare for the upcoming Lenten Quiet Day retreat Beauty from Ashes. As many of you know burning the palms I collected on Palm Sunday last year is part of my Ash Wednesday tradition, and I like to use these ashes to paint a picture during Lent. This year the ashes will become part of my finger labyrinth and will provide a great focus for my reflections as I choose scriptures, images and reflections for the retreat day. This is a great opportunity to pause during Lent and refocus yourself for the remainder of the season. If you would like, there is still time to sign up for the entire series of Winter/Spring retreats which will conclude with Spirituality of Gardening on May 11th. Even though the first of these retreat is over, we can still send you the recording if you sign up.
On Saturday we posted this compelling prayer by Diettrich Bonhoeffer, a good prayer to read and reread as we focus our attention on the upcoming season. For more Lenten prayers by people like Mother Theresa, Henri Nouwen and Desmond Tutu, check out this post from a few years ago.
In her Freerange Friday: Welcome to a New Month, Lilly Lewin talks about Candlemas and the presentation of Jesus at the temple. For those of us who did not grow up in liturgical churches, this is a much needed education. Posts like this help us stay rooted in the gospel story while exploring new and creative ways to express our faith.
On Thursday, for St Brigid’s I posted my favourite hospitality liturgy as Brigid was well known for her hospitality and generosity to everyone who came to the monastery at Kildare. In Discernment: Feeling the Tug Elaine Breckenridge comments “I can feel the tug when God is inviting me to make beauty, joy, love and peace the rule of my life. Surrendering to being ruled by those four virtues means that am finished with writing intentions, mission statements, setting goals, practicing the skills of highly
effective people. Tuning into the feeling of God gently tugging on my hearts strings is
how I will practice discernment this year. “ It is so liberating not to work to mission statements and goals but to listen sensitively for the spirit’s guidance each day.
Liturgical Rebels header
I also hope that next week will see the launch of my podcast The Liturgical Rebels which I know that many of you are awaiting with great anticipation. Prayers appreciated as we work on the final details.
For love of the world,
This beautiful yet pain filled earth
On which we live,
God does foolish things.
How strange and unwise,
To send a much beloved son
To dwell amongst us,
Knowing he would die
A tragic and painful death.
Only love would be so reckless,
And so vulnerable.
Only God would care so much
For those who
despised and rejected Holy love.
For love of the world,
God does foolish things,
That turn the world upside down.
And bring life where we expected death.
Many blessings
Christine Sine
Photo by Lisa Fotios on pixels
Celtic Prayer Cards
These cards can be used by individuals for daily meditation or by groups. They can also be used for spiritual direction, counseling and grief therapy. Celtic Prayer Cards with prayers by Christine Sine and crafted by Hilary Horn with Celtic design and contemplative Celtic imagery.
by Christine Sine
Lent begins next week with Ash Wednesday on February 14th, and I almost missed it. Preparing properly for it at least.
Last week I was interviewed for a podcast about Lent. I was asked why I practice it, how I plan to practice it and what I hope to learn from it. As I gave my answers I felt like a bit of a hypocrite because I realized how little I had thought about this important season of reflection, introspection and realignment. Launching my podcast The Liturgical Rebels has distracted me so much that everything else is on the back burner.
This needs to change I thought, and my spirit responded with a resounding Amen and an admonition: “Get ready. Find your way.”
I call myself a contemplative activist and a liturgical rebel descriptors that really seem to come into focus as I start to think about Lent. Most people think of Lent as a time to give up something like chocolate or TV but for me it is about letting go of distractions that keep me from the path God intends me to tread, a path that is meant to draw me closer to God, to neighbours and to God’s good creation. It is also a time to grab hold of new commitments to actions that will transform my life and the lives of others, as they bring glimpses of God’s eternal world into being.. In other words this is a time to love God with all our hearts and souls and minds and love our neighbours as ourselves.
Getting ready for the season doesn’t come easy. It doesn’t mean picking up the first devotional that catches my attention and going about the rest of life as usual. Lent requires lots of intentional preparation and commitment.
So how do I set about preparing? Here are the steps I plan to follow.
Find a Focus
A focus that pulls together your spiritual practice, reading and even the arrangement of your sacred space during Lent is something I find extremely helpful. This year, because Lent starts on Valentines Day, and ends just before April Fools Day, I have chosen the theme “For love of the world God did foolish things”. I used this several years ago and found it to be a very helpful way to look at the purpose of Lent and my involvement in it.
Rearrange My Sacred Space.
The graphic above is my emblem for Lent this year. I found a lovely big rock that I will sketch it on to form the centerpiece for my Lenten contemplative garden which I hope to complete this week. Then I will forage through my plants and memorabilia to decide what else to add. The creation of such a garden is a contemplative exercise in itself and always helps prepare me for the season which lies ahead. I explain the process of creating a garden like this in my book Digging Deeper: The Art of Contemplative Gardening . I will also replace some of my candles that represent my circle of light, with crosses which seem like a more appropriate symbol for Lent. Objects that meaningfully draw us into the season ahead are powerful reminders of what we sense God wants to accomplish in our lives. Setting up my sacred space like this takes a lot of time and a lot of discernment, but it is well worth it in the end.
Choose Contemplative Practices.
At our Mustard Seed House community meeting next week we will make finger labyrinths. I love finger labyrinths as a contemplative tool. each time we use them is like taking a mini pilgrimage. They help us focus as we “walk the path” and keep us centered in what matters. If you choose a theme for Lent, repeating it as you begin your circuit of the labyrinth is a great way to improve your focus. The practice often brings clarity for issues I am struggling with. Evidently it is particularly powerful if one walks the labyrinth with one’s non dominant hand. I will use it at the beginning of Lent to help me plan in more detail for the season. I also plan to pull out my Lenten prayer cards and choose one each week as a specific focus.
One of my favourite things to do at the beginning of Lent, on Ash Wednesday, is not only to attend an Ash Wednesday service, but to also to burn the crosses and palms from last year’s Palm Sunday procession. In the last few years, as Lilly Lewin and I describe in our virtual retreat Finding Beauty in the Ashes of Lent, I use these ashes to create something beautiful, a word, a painting or even incorporating the ashes in my sand to make the labyrinth with.
Choose Your Reading Carefully
As most of you know I am an avid reader and already have a pile of books that will provide me with food for thought during Lent. Cole Arthur Riley’s Black Liturgies; Margaret Silf’s Sacred Spaces: Stations on a Celtic Way and Diana Butler Bass’s Freeing Jesus are currently on the top of the pile, but I know that as I walk through Lent it is possible that other books will rise to the surface. I don’t tend to use a traditional devotional during Lent, partly because I want to remain open to the spirit guiding me into new possibilities. Maintaining this kind of flexibility means that I need to remain alert to what is happening around and inside me, another exercise I find productive during Lent.
If you are looking for something simple to engage in during this season you might like to use our booklet “Hungering for Life” a free Godspacelight resource with creative exercises for each week of Lent. Or even simpler our 40 daily ideas for Lent with a suggestion for each of the 40 days of Lent. Make sure you check out the other resources available for the season too.
What Actions Will You Take?
Lent is about preparing ourselves for the life of God’s eternal world, a world in which there is no more pain or suffering or destruction. It is a time to commit to actions that will bring glimpses of God’s shalom world into being. Is there an organization that works with the poor, the unjustly treated or the disabled you would like to volunteer with during Lent? Could you help clean up the environment in your neighbourhood, maybe commit to at least one day a week car free? Or is this the time to start gardening?
As you can see Lent takes a lot of preparation, and it takes a lot of resolve to continue walking the path for 40 days (45 really as Sundays are not considered part of Lent and so the season actual spans 45 days.
So join the Liturgical Rebels this year. Step outside the box and do something more than giving up chocolate or reading a short devotional each morning.
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What do you long for as you look towards Easter?
How can we create Beauty from the ashes of the past?
How do we enter into God’s Lenten story that prepares us for the death and resurrection of Easter?
The Lenten season is meant to be a time for reflection, retreat and refocusing in preparation for our celebration of Easter. Yet most of us find it hard to take time out of our busy schedules for this much needed reorientation time.
Join Christine Sine at the Lenten retreat: Beauty from Ashes for a morning of scripture reading and quiet reflection that will be for many of us a much needed oasis of quiet in the midst of our chaotic lives.
I love this beautiful prayer by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, which I like to post each year as a Lenten prayer. It challenges me with what it means to follow Jesus as we walk towards the cross. It formed the centre of my meditation this morning – so challenging knowing where his journey led. This prayer was used as one of the Lenten meditations in The Mosaic Bible. This year I have included a short youtube video with an overview of Bonhoeffer’s life. It ends with a challenge for us to engage in the injustices of our world. We may not believe that what Bonhoeffer did was right, but his willingness to confront the issues of his day is something that we all need to take seriously.
I Cannot Do This Alone
O God, early in the morning I cry to you.
Help me to pray
And to concentrate my thoughts on you;
I cannot do this alone.
In me there is darkness,
But with you there is light;
I am lonely, but you do not leave me;
I am feeble in heart, but with you there is help;
I am restless, but with you there is peace.
In me there is bitterness, but with you there is patience;
I do not understand your ways,
But you know the way for me….
Restore me to liberty,
And enable me to live now
That I may answer before you and before men.
Lord whatever this day may bring,
Your name be praised.
Amen
And hopefully your will have time to watch this compelling documentary about his life too.
Photo above: Dietrich Bonhoeffer – Charles Pate http://cpatejr.blogspot.com/2011/10/prison-project.html
Resources to enrich your lenten celebration. Includes downloads of: A Journey Into Wholeness, Lent/Easter Prayer Cards, and 40 Daily Ideas Guide for Lent.
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