This morning I am preparing for our Lenten retreat on Saturday, thinking about what I will do for Lent and how I will prepare my own sacred space for the season. This prayer by Wendell Berry seemed very appropriate for this time of preparation. I have been meditating on the words all morning as I look out at the snow covered Olympic mountains.
What We Need Is Here
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.
Benedictines of Mary in rural Missouri produce some beautiful reflective music. It has topped the charts in classical music and as you listen to the recording below it is not hard to understand why. I just purchased their new album Lent at Ephesus for Tom’s birthday and would highly recommend it. Listening to music like this is a great way to get ready for Lent.
Lent is just a week away. Saturday is our retreat Return to Our Senses in Lent, and Wednesday next week is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. For me it feels as though Lent began a month ago however with the completion of A Journey into Wholeness and our Lenten Prayer Cards. Many of my reflections have focused on our preparation for the journey towards the cross and the practices I want to engage in for my own journey. Not surprisingly, I felt I had to write these down and the result is a new resource for the season 40+ Ideas for Lent and Holy Week
Lent is about preparing our hearts for the coming of Christ. It requires discipline and perseverance in order to fully enter into the season. This resource is provided to help maintain that discipline by suggesting daily activities, prayer ideas, and reflective music suggestions for your use.
Although this free resource is designed to be used in conjunction with A Journey into Wholeness and the Lenten Prayer Cards, it also works as a stand alone discipline.
Enjoy and if you have suggestions on how we can improve this for next year please let me know.
If you are new to this blog you might also like to check out the other resource lists that were posted last week
Daily Scripture Readings for Lent
New lists for Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday will be added as Holy week approaches. If there are other resources you feel should be added to these lists please do not hesitate to add them in the comment sections.
What is obedience and more particularly, what does it mean to be obedient to God? As we head towards Lent these are questions I ask myself. The scriptures tell us Christ was obedient unto death – even death on a Cross (Phil 2:8). Many of us struggle with that concept. Did God really intend for Jesus to die and if so why such a painful death?
Obedience is about being open and receptive to the voice of God. It necessitates a willingness to listen combined with a determination to respond even when that responsiveness involves changing our lives in accordance with what we hear. It means responding, even if what we hear means walking towards death as Jesus did. Obedience to the divine will, giving priority to God’s will over our own self will means that we believe God will always reveal what is best for us. It means acknowledging that the primary task of our lives is finding God’s will and conforming to it.
This is not an easy way of life or an easy form of listening. Listening constantly for God’s will places us constantly on the alert for the slightest sound, the quietest whisper of God’s voice. It attunes us to the unexpected and often ignored voices through whom God speaks – the young, the old, the disabled, the poor, the abandoned, the inarticulate and the marginalized. These were the people that Christ so often honoured and applauded.
Unfortunately these are often not the voices that we listen to. The rich and the powerful shout loudly and often drown out other voices. They encourage us to believe that our longing for more stuff and more security are the best way to prosper and follow God. They swamp out God’s call to simplicity and justice and encourage to look for the best paying job rather than the one that is God’s will for us.
As we head towards Lent next week and prepare to follow Christ towards the Cross I wonder what would happen if we really committed ourselves to obedience. How differently would we live if we listened to the voices of the oppressed and the marginalized, to concerns about climate change and bloated consumptive lifestyles? How differently would we live if we truly committed ourselves to trust God and walk in obedience to the divine will… no matter what the cost to our personal lives?
For Jesus trusting in God led him down a very challenging path, but the scriptures also tell us that for the joy set before him he endured the cross (Hebrews 12:2).
The view from our motel – Snow in Anacortes
Tom and I are on retreat in Anacortes, looking out on a snow covered landscape. I don’t usually blog while we are away on retreat, but as I contemplated God’s word this morning these thoughts bubbled up within me and I felt I needed to share. Once again I am dipping into Michael Casey’s book Strangers to the City in which he reminds us
This land is most appropriately called the land of the dying because in it nothing is stable, nothing is eternal and the life of human beings is lived in the shadow of death. (87)
Fortunately he goes on to remind us
Our Christian faith however keeps reminding us that death is the doorway to eternal life, so that there is no need to attempt to blot it out of consciousness. (90)
These have been good words for me to meditate on this morning. Not only do we live our lives in the seemingly unending shadow of death but also in the shadow of sin and brokenness. Each day contains many “little deaths”, actions that destroy not build up, times we are hateful not loving, attitudes that favour self over others.
In yesterday’s post I mentioned the Japanese art of Kintsugi in which ceramics are mended with resin infused with gold powder. This is only possible when we recognize something is both broken and valuable. When we pretend that things are not broken they cannot be renewed and transformed. When we think they are unrepairable we throw them out and often miss the beauty of what God wants to create.
Our hope lies in the fact that God offers eternal life not just in the world beyond death but here and now through the renewal of our broken areas into wholeness, through the transformation of our self centred lives into other centred and through the renewal of God’s abiding presence within us. All we need to do is acknowledge our brokenness and need for transformation – Wow imagine what is possible when we give all our broken pieces to God.
It reminds me of the words of Psalm 23 as it is expressed here in The Voice:
The Eternal is my shepherd, He cares for me always.
2 He provides me rest in rich, green fields
beside streams of refreshing water.
He soothes my fears;
3 He makes me whole again,
steering me off worn, hard paths
to roads where truth and righteousness echo His name.4 Even in the unending shadows of death’s darkness,
I am not overcome by fear.
Because You are with me in those dark moments,
near with Your protection and guidance,
I am comforted.5 You spread out a table before me,
provisions in the midst of attack from my enemies;
You care for all my needs, anointing my head with soothing, fragrant oil,
filling my cup again and again with Your grace.
6 Certainly Your faithful protection and loving provision will pursue me
where I go, always, everywhere.
I will always be with the Eternal,
in Your house forever. (From Biblegateway.com)
Our preLenten retreat Return to Our Senses in Lent, is only a week away and Ash Wednesday is only a few days after that. Tom and I are heading off this morning for one of our quarterly prayer retreats. Not surprisingly, I am thinking a lot about the transformation I want to see in my own life during the season.
Part of what has struck me this morning is how easily we discard that which is no longer perfect or functional. Mending, repairing and reusing are lost arts. Yet there is beauty hidden in brokenness. God does not discard us because we are broken. Our remade selves are grounded in the transformation of our brokenness.
There is often more beauty in repaired or reused objects than in the original. Like in the Japanese art of Kintsugi in which the art of mending broken pottery with laquer resin sprinkled with powdered gold highlighting the brokenness. Repair can be beautiful. Repair can make things better than new.
We see it too in creative forms of recycling. Like this use of broken pots for planting.
Broken pots from Salvaged Nature http://www.etsy.com/shop/SalvagedNature
And this creative use of an old tire – ugly and polluting in the environment – to make a planter
Check out these creative ideas too for new garden containers – or for storage of other items too.
What I have been thinking about is – If we can make such beauty from old, discarded items imagine what God can do with the broken areas of our life. Nothing should be discarded, everything can be made new.
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Music is such a wonderful aid to meditation and reflection that I realize the need to help all of us find appropriate music to assist us in this. Obviously there are hundreds if not thousands of songs and musical pieces out there that would be appropriate so I have tried to post a sampling from different traditions. Please do add your suggestions in the comment section as this is another new resource list for me.
Here are some of the best resources (some outside the box) that I have found in the music area for Lent and Easter.
GIA Publications has a very rich array of music for the season.
Discipleship Ministries has some good music resources for Lent, mainly available as free downloads.
Paul Neeley posts extensively on music resources for all seasons of the church year. Check out his link to Lenten, Holy Week and Easter resources.
Gungor’s song “Beautiful Things” is a powerful song of brokenness and transformation
A beautiful Celtic tune “A Lenten Journey”
And a beautiful reflective song from one of my favourite musicians Jeff Johnson
Handel’s “Messiah” is now traditionally known as a Christmas piece but was originally written for Easter.
“Te Deum” – 5th Century is attributed to two Fathers and Doctors of the Church, St. Ambrose and St. Augustine and is one the most majestic chants in the Liturgy of the Church.
These Gregorian chants from Assisi are beautiful to listen to as a focus for reflection.
“The St. Matthew Passion”, is a sacred oratorio from the Passions written by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1727 for solo voices, double choir and double orchestra, with libretto by Picander. It sets chapters 26 and 27 of the Gospel of Matthew (in the German translation of Martin Luther) to music, with interspersed chorales and arias. It is widely regarded as one of the masterpieces of classical sacred music. If you choose to listen to this make sure you have plenty of time – it is over 2 hours long.
“All Glory Laud and Honour” is the traditional hymn to sing on Palm Sunday.
“The Power of the Cross” – A beautiful reflective hymn for Good Friday.
And another classic – “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”.
“The Old Rugged Cross” – is another old favourite.
Check Out Other Godspace Resources:
A series on Lent and Creativity:
Get Creative and Play Games for Lent;
Five Ways to Foster Creativity in Kids During Lent
Seven Tips for Creating Sacred Space For Lent
Let’s Get Creative – Doodle Your Way Through the Lenten Calendar
Godspace Resources:
Lord Lead Us To Repentance – A Lenten meditation video produced in 2012
Were You There When They Crucified My Lord? This meditation is designed for Good Friday and does not have music.
An Invitation to Journey – A short Lenten meditation video 2008
Is This the Fast? – A Lenten meditation produced in 2008
All our Lenten and Easter resource lists, including FREE downloads can be found here
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