The symbols of Lent
Every year my good friend Mark Pierson in New Zealand sends me a copy of his Lenten reflections which I love to use throughout this season. It has just arrived and I am thoroughly enjoying his thoughts. So instead of adding another post today for the series Return to Our Senses, I thought I would just direct you to these for your meditation.
Mark reminds us that the liturgical colour for most of the days of Lent is violet (though purple or dark blue will work), the colour of royalty and kingship. He suggests placing a small piece of violet/purple/dark blue cloth or paper in a place on a table or ledge to make a focus for you during your Lenten journey. From time to time you can add things to this place to remind you of your progress in this Lenten journey.
This morning I could not find a purple piece of paper but added a purple candle to my corner and will use it through the rest of this season as a focus for my morning reflections. It will stand amidst the clutter on my desk, beside my bowl of ashes and the cross I have been using as a focal point.
What are you using to help you focus during this journey of Lent?
I wrote this prayer a couple of years ago but have added the photo this year to provide a focus for reflection during this season.
Today’s reflection in the series Return to Our Senses in Lent comes from Jim Fisher. Jim tells me he has no credentials. He has no degree. He is the author of no books. He has never attended a seminary. But he does love his journey of faith and loves to write stories he calls Holy Hugs. It’s not really a blog, but rather a collection of stories and reflections that he hopes nourish and inspire the right side of your brain in this crazy left-brained world.
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Phew! What a journey this is! I need to take a detour off this trail, plop myself on the beach up ahead beyond the edge of the trees. I need to take off my shoes and dig my toes and my sit-bones into the warm sand. Dear Lord, rest my soul, rest my body. I need a break.
I close my eyes and allow the sun to warm my face and the upturned palms of my hands. My index fingers lightly touch my thumbs. The sound of the breaking waves off in the distance fills me with a mysterious and profound peace. I am alone … but not really.
It is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. I have to give something up. I do this every year. What should it be? TV? Nope. Already did that … fifteen years ago … never to return. Chocolate? Desserts? Nope. No sugar for me, thanks. I’m hypoglycemic. Beer? Wine? Maybe. Facebook? The Internet? Maybe. The Seven Deadlies: Wrath, Greed, Sloth, Pride, Lust, Envy, Gluttony? What shall it be?
Idolatry?
Maybe.
But why?
Ostensibly I go without to remind me of my lack, my separation from God; to remind me of the hole in my soul that yearns to be filled to its fullest; to remind me of the hole that yearns to be whole.
So I empty myself of something for a season to remind me of the gap that exists between who I am and who God is. I am on this walk because I feel that gap between myself and God. I am seeking Jesus to fill that gap. I am worshiping the One who can make me whole. It’s like the picture of the two cliffs with me on one side and God on the other with a chasm in between. Only Christ can fill that gap.
Right?
Idolatry is when I try to replace God with success, good looks, fortune, youth, or fame. Pick whatever you seek. Pick whatever you think you lack. Pick your gap. Pick your Idol. Place it on the other cliff and our society will supply a seemingly endless variety of products and advice promising to bridge you over to your goal. I get that. I feel those gaps.
But I also feel a gap between myself and Love, but my inability to love perfectly is different somehow. I do not approach Love as an object beautiful and sublime in itself on the opposite cliff. I do not approach Love as if it was an Idol to be worshiped. Love is not like that. Love does not say, “Look at me!”
Rather, it invites me to regard others through its lens.
In fact, Love invites me to regard all of Creation through the lens of the Holy Spirit – through the lens of Godly Love. Perfect Love is within me because the Holy Spirit is within me. But wait a minute. If God is Love, how does this fit into the metaphor? What am I really reaching for?
As I hold my face to the sun, I feel The Holy Spirit sprinting down the beach toward me. She stops. She sits facing me, gathers my hands into hers, washes her breath across my soul and whispers into my heart, “You are my beloved. Love who you are, my dear. Love who you were created to be. Open yourself to Love and allow me to seep into every corner of your Being. The One who you reach for has already has taken up residence within you. But the goal is not as you imagined. There actually is no chasm between us. We are becoming as one. I have been here since you began your walk down this path and accepted God’s Son into your life. Hold my hand. Embrace me. Give me a hug, you fool! Allow me to live through you. Arise and continue your journey, dear friend, knowing that your completeness and joy comes more out of the journey than any imagined destination.”
Oh. Wait. Now I see it. The two cliffs are merging. The two are becoming one. The metaphor is starting to dissolve and fade away. And, yes, I understand that the two will never actually become one. I will never become God. That’s not the point. The joy arises from the imperfect eternal becoming like Christ, not the perfect oneness.
As the Holy Spirit nestles herself anew into my soul, I arise, brush the sand off my pants, and continue my journey, but now it has taken on a different feel, in a way. There is a dance in my heart and a spring in my step. I am practicing speaking through Love, seeing through Love, hearing through Love, touching through Love. I am a new creation (again!).
I am starting to look through Love with wide-eyed anticipation and joy, and all of Creation starts to look a little differently through its lens.
Perfect Love does not need to be reached or accepted to work through me. It is not an end-point in itself. It is something I drink in and splash around as best I can. I hope you don’t mind.
And, too …
Love does not operate in isolation.
Love does not expect to be doted on.
Love does not even need to be understood.
What we believe about Love makes no difference. What we do through Love makes all the difference in the world.
So what stuff am I giving up for Lent? Nothing, actually, and yet everything, in a way. I am giving up and giving in – giving up on a metaphor that depicts a distant god and giving in to the God who is already within me.
Oh, Lord! I am going to need help with this! Cause your lavish, liquid Love to infuse every cell in my body and every dark corner of my soul. May it seep into every thing and every one I touch. May it filter everything I see and hear. May it harmonize with everything I speak. And may it float beneath everything I write.
… and not just for the next forty days.
Amen.
This last Saturday we gathered at the Mustard Seed House for our first Lenten retreat ever. We began with an exercise in breathing, adapting several of the prayers from Return to Our Senses, as a process that drew us into the love of our creator God. This exercise became the focus of my own reflections during the rest of the retreat and continues to shape my thoughts as I journey through Lent.
Good breathing habits do not come naturally to most adults. A baby’s torso expands like a balloon with each breath. Her belly puffs up, and her ribs swing out. It’s efficient, it’s effortless, and you can’t help but relax while watching her. But somewhere through the years we lose this ability. Stress, physical tension, chronic pain, insomnia, and even the constricting clothes we wear, transform us from powerful belly breathers into shallow chest gaspers. We need to be taught to breathe properly again.
One question that rose to the surface during the retreat is: What does the breath of God look like for you? One person mentioned the ocean, the surge of water crashing onto the beach and then being sucked back into the vast expanse created a wonderful image of the breath of God for her. Having spent twelve years of my life living on a ship on the ocean, this resonated with me too. Lying on my bed surrounded by the lapping of water on the hull is a very soothing experience. Imagining that sound as the breath makes it even more profound.
Another question we grappled with is: What constricts or diminishes the breath of God? What comes to my mind is pollution which I think is an affront to God. On Saturday, however we talked about other confining influences that prevent us breathing in the breath of God to our full capacity. Anything that restricts the freedom of the spirit in our lives diminishes the breath of God within us.
Interestingly, generally speaking, women use less of their lung capacity then men do. High heel shoes, corsets and other constricting clothing diminish our ability to take a deep breath. Spiritually too women are often more restricted then men. Their God given abilities are often confined by regulations that prevent them fully expressing or breathing out, the gifts God has placed within them.
Breathing is at the core of who we are both as physical and spiritual beings. So as you continue your journey through Lent, stop and reflect – when was the last time you took a full deep breath of the love of God and when was the last time you breathed that out in compassion and care into our world?
“The heavens declare the glory of God,
Today’s post in the series Return to Our Senses in Lent, is written by my husband Tom Sine.
Last week we ask you: are you ready for the spiritual discipline of daily laughter? We encouraged you to join Ted and Company in learning to laugh at our own foibles every day so we could learn to live without taking ourselves too seriously.
This week we are urging you to consider adopting an attitude of gratitude. It is all too easy for all of us to focus more on what’s going wrong than what we have to give thanks for. When I used to work for World Concern in Haiti in the early 80s I used return home to Seattle feeling very embarrassed about my petty complaints Sometimes I was able to go an entire week without complaining about the weather, driving conditions or some of my difficult friends. An amazing miracle!
As we enter the season of Lent I urge you not only to reflect on your shortcomings but to fast from verbalizing complaints for a whole week. Any time you are tempted to complain stop and give expression to something your grateful for. Research actually indicates that people who express more gratitude are significantly happier than those who are given to complaining about their situations.
I can still remember how proud I was of my dad during his repeated times in the hospital for several serious ailments during his final years. I never heard him complain once. Instead when I would ask him how he was he would say “I am always all right!”
As you can see from the picture Christine and I plus our dog Bonnie have a great deal to be grateful for. Friday we arrived at our 40 acre site on Camano Island for the Mustard Seed Village only to make a stunning discovery. As you can see our construction team has just poured the foundation and erected eight poles for the first building in the Mustard Seed Village. As you can imagine we had little difficulty in expressing our genuine gratitude to God for all of those who contributed to this new beginning.
But were also grateful for the opportunity to finish what we have started. We are grateful for the opportunity to join with others in bringing a road and power to the site as well as constructing a sustainable septic system and putting a pump on our well. We are grateful that this new facility will enable us to start hosting gatherings on the land to help people learn to live more innovatively, sustainably and festively in these uncertain times.
Write me this week and let me know if you are able to replace words of complaint with words of gratitude for the entire first week of Lent. Also write me if you’d like to join many others who are helping us make the Mustard Seed Village a center for Christian imagination and celebration.
Today’s reflection in the series Return to Our Senses in Lent, comes from Andy Wade, the communications guy at Mustard Seed Associates. Andy also runs the homeless shelter in Hood River Oregon, is a keen gardener and preaches on the side. This reflection comes from his sermon for Ash Wednesday.
Return to our Senses in Lent What does that mean for you? For me, it’s a reminder that I’m not God. To return to my senses is to return to the person God created me to be and to stop trying to orchestrate God’s mission in my life and the world. Let be back up a bit…
For the Western Church, Wednesday marked the beginning of Lent, 40 days of self-examination, of deep reflection, of humility.
One thing that bothers me about Ash Wednesday is the smearing of ashes thing. While there is good, biblical support for acts of repentance marked by ashes, I wrestle with those words, “From dust you were created, to dust you shall return.” Words from the curse after “The Fall” of Adam and Eve in the garden. But haven’t we been redeemed from the curse in Christ Jesus, our Lord!
As I reflected on this, I remembered my own experience of deliverance. For four years I suffered with pretty serious panic attacks. I ended up at the hospital more than once and was actually to the point of not wanting to go out and do things if it meant I would be any distance from emergency help. All that ended one afternoon when a good friend laid hands on me and prayed for my healing. In an instant, the panic attacks were gone – that was over 20 years ago! But that’s not the end of the story. God took away the debilitating panic attacks but did not heal me of generalized anxiety and mild depression. Why was that?
It was also about this time that I heard God’s call into pastoral ministry. I loved studying scripture and even more, discovering all the many threads that tie it all together and reach out to weave us into God’s story. And as I began this new journey I realized why I was not fully healed. It was because I trust too much in myself, my own abilities and my intellect. If God had chosen to fully heal me I would have wandered off into the ministry filled with pride and self-sufficiency. The only way God could use me for his purposes is if I had to trust in God, not in myself.
I believe there’s truth in that story for all of us. The Apostle Paul seemed to see it too, speaking of his “thorn in the flesh”. And whether we like it or not, the effects of sin, that big “S” sin we all participate in all the way back to Adam and Eve, still clings to us like flypaper.
We are redeemed. We are “saved” in Christ Jesus. There’s no doubt about it. But women still suffer in childbirth, we still work by the sweat of our brow, and we all, ultimately, return to dust as death catches up to us. If we’re listening, we are reminded daily of our weaknesses. We are reminded that God never intended us to live lives of self-sufficiency, of pride, of independence – especially from God. We were created for community. We were created for one-another and for God. And the remnants of the curse remind us just how dependent we are.
Shall we wallow in the curse, fearing death and doing whatever we can to hold on to life? Jesus not only teaches us, but lived into, a completely different reality; the reality that in order to truly live, we must die. We must take up our cross daily and follow him. To overcome the sting of death we must embrace it on the cross.
The cross, that symbol of redemption from the curse. That which was meant to take life in the most horrifying and humiliating manner has become for us the symbol of life. And Jesus calls us to not just embrace the cross as a symbol of life, but a way of life. A life of living, loving, sacrifice. A life devoted to God and the purposes of God – which naturally implies a life devoted to loving others even when it appears to cost us everything.
And so we arrive at Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. Ultimately the sin of Adam and Eve, and really of all of us, is that we attempt to usurp the place of God. We forget that We are not in charge, God is. Lent is a time to remember that God is God and without that sweat breath of the Holy Spirit, we are but dust and to dust we shall return.
Lent is also a time to remember how often we get it wrong. Like Jesus’ followers who shout Hosanna in the Highest heaven” as Jesus rides the lowly donkey into Jerusalem – fully expecting some kind of military coup that will restore Israel to its former glory, we often miss what God is really up to. We have our big ideas. But God can and will do even more than we can ask or even imagine!
Lent is a time to remember that Jesus came not for his own glory, but for the life of the world. And when we follow him in life, taking up our crosses daily, we too are to live lives of sacrificial love for one another.
You can be sure that whatever it is that God is up to, it will involve expanding God’s Kingdom purposes – extending the joy of healing, hope, and reconciliation to our friends, neighbors and even the strangers in our community. But the only way we’ll see it is if we embrace our weaknesses, recognize that we are but dust – dust infused with the life-giving breath of God, and walk humbly into the future, trusting fully in our Creator.
So how am I “returning to my senses in Lent”? My new discipline this season it to be keenly aware of my motivations, especially those that usurp the place of God in my life. Part of this discipline will be to intentionally ask for help more often. When I choose not to ask for help, to ask God to reveal to me the underlying motivation behind my “independence”. Sometimes we do need to “go it alone”, but often we don’t. So a follow-up question this season will be, “how does my choice to go it alone affect not just my spiritual well-being, but the spiritual well-being of those around me, my family, friends, and community.
What new, or old, spiritual discipline are you engaging as you walk through these 40 days? We’d love to hear from you!
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