Lent

The pre-Easter period called Lent meant little to me as a child.  Mostly it had to do with certain adult social events called Lenten dinners.  I remember watching my mother decorate bowls of cubed red jello with big blobs of Dream Whip, a predecessor to Cool Whip.  Dream Whip came as dry powder and was whipped with milk until it loosely resembled frothy whipped cream - only with a strong metallic aftertaste. Yuck.  The advantages of Dream Whip over whipped cream were obvious.  It was cheap, could be prepared well in advance, and would hold its shape for hours or even days.  No matter that it tasted gross.  Who knows about the nutritional aspects, which were most likely pretty awful.

Sometimes during Lent there was talk of people “giving up” something – like chocolate or coffee – but even as a child I could see this was in the form of an intention that didn’t play out behaviorally.  So what was Lent all about, anyway? I hadn’t yet learned of Jesus’ suffering and sacrifice.  I didn’t know anything about Jewish history, or that His death and resurrection at Easter were divine expressions of love.  And so I didn’t understand that Lent could be a time of preparation for Easter.

I’m in a much different spot now, and have been thinking about Lent for weeks.  Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, and I am compelled to invite self-denial and dependence on God as a prerequisite to celebrating Jesus’ death (perfect sacrifice) and resurrection (perfect restoration).

 “The purpose of Lent is to be a season of fasting, self-denial, Christian growth, penitence, conversion, and simplicity. Lent, which comes from the Teutonic (Germanic) word for springtime, can be viewed as a spiritual spring cleaning: a time for taking spiritual inventory and then cleaning out those things which hinder our corporate and personal relationships with Jesus Christ and our service to him. Thus it is fitting that the season of Lent begin with a symbol of repentance: placing ashes mixed with oil on one's head or forehead. However, we must remember that our Lenten disciplines are supposed to ultimately transform our entire person: body, soul, and spirit. Our Lenten disciplines are supposed to help us become more like Christ. Eastern Christians call this process theosis, which St. Athanasius aptly describes as ‘becoming by grace what God is by nature.’” (http://www.churchyear.net/lent.html)

Is my heart ready?  Yes and no.  More than last year but probably not as much as it could be.  Am I resolved to observe this season with a submitted and expectant heart?  Yes!  The Dream Whip days are long gone.  Lent this year promises to be about prayer and meditation, reflection and repentance, self-denial and fasting.  Let the soul-searching begin.  

The Cherub

Caleb Johnson rested like a small but mighty cherub in his casket today – a handsome little boy with underdeveloped hands and a serene facial expression.  His lips were barely parted as if to whisper a secret - ssshhhhhh - although he never spoke during his seven short years on earth.  Perhaps his many secrets had already been told heart-to-heart in ways that defy rational understanding.  I know very little about the mystery of this young man’s life and death, and yet his legacy of supreme childlikeness – and the lessons learned through his suffering and the love encompassing him - will remain.  

Measuring Time

“You and I today, in the 21^st century, fall into the idea that time is something measured by a clock – when we get to work and when we end work, when we get up and when we go to bed.  Or perhaps we measure time by when we eat – breakfast and lunch and dinner.  We can too easily become ‘time-clock humans’ or even ‘meal-driven people’ by how our time is regulated.  Is there another way?  There is. That other way is to let the hours of prayer shape our days.  The blessings of life that enter most deeply into our soul do not come by our finding more free time or more leisure.  Those blessings enter the soul when we let soul rhythms, the sacred rhythms of prayer, shape the structure of our day.

“Jews at the time of Jesus measured time in a variety of ways – none of them by a clock.  There were morning prayers and late afternoon prayers and evening prayers, each of which was tied somehow to the worship of the temple.  Time was not rooted simply in the economic system or in meal routines but more fundamentally by the temple’s worship.  Imagine a clock that did not day ‘3PM’ but ‘afternoon sacrifice.’

“Jesus came of age in a Judaism shaped by a three-times-a-day-we-all-stop-and-pray-together sacred rhythm.  This sacred sense of time shaped Jesus, and it shaped how the early followers of Jesus learned to pray with Jesus and with the church.  The so-called ‘hours’ of prayer were not one-or two-hour-long prayer marathons that wandered the globe in prayer requests while little children groaned the question, ‘How long before we are done?’  Nor were they times when Jewish males opened their scrolls of Torah, pulled out some Bible-study reference tools, and went to work on a passage of Scripture.  No, these sacred hours of prayer were a designated ‘hour’ (such as 3 PM) set aside from the day for several minutes to recite together Israel’s richest treasures of prayer.”

-Praying With The Church, Following Jesus Daily, Hourly, Today – by Scot McKnight (p. 36-38)

It Happened AGAIN

Picture this:

Long-standing enemies - good-gone-bad-guys - taunt their unguarded, unsuspecting prey, ready to pounce.  While they appear deceptively benign and even friendly and desirable, reality lurks beneath their beguiling surface: danger and even destruction.

Ploys?  Sensory satisfaction.  Lust.  Addiction.

I know better than to respond, or even given them eye contact.  I know better than to blindly engage.  And yet I do.  I did. I never want to again.  I probably will.  Oh, I must not!

Now I’m sorry.  More than sorry: regretful and repentant.  I’ve been duped and doped.  Overcome.  My heart pounds and races with addictive overload.  My fuzzy head swims.  Ah, when will I ever learn to turn from that liar – sugar – and his accomplices – white flour and chocolate?  Never?  Or today?

To the offenders, now hear this:

Brrrrowwwwnies!  You little frown-downer-BROWNIES! I listened to you again!  ACK! For the millionth time I was sucked in by your super-refined-and-tastebud-deceiving-lies!  You enticed, beguiled, captured, and conquered.

Of course that was my fault, not yours.  You can’t help being sneaky, alluring, and right there – presto! – in my weak moment.

I can no longer afford to befriend you even casually!  Tonight every inch of me declares the truth: I must turn away at from you at first glimpse.  Run the other way.  Flee!  Refuse to be sucked down the drain of slavery to sugar-and-gluten-and-caffeine.  Again.

May I remember next time:  STAY AWAY. 

(Note of explanation: I have issues with wheat/gluten intolerance, caffeine intolerance, and refined sugar sensitivity.  In case you couldn’t tell.)

Those Guys

“You are THOSE GUYS.”  (This rather emphatically.)  Josie points to the four of us scattered around the living room.  “And I am GOD.”   (Emphatically again.) She runs around the room and whishes her hands, pixie-dust-style, at each of us in turn. “C’MON!”  She herds us like jackrabbits-on-the-run toward the other room and onto the open futon.  “HERE!  This is HEAVEN! You are safe here!”

(A two-year-old's creative and personalized reenactment of the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego being rescued by God from the fiery furnace.)

Techno-Habituation

The TV is glaring and blaring out there in the other room.  Good.  I’ll stay here (a fugitive) with the door SHUT.

Why? I personally dislike television; it requires super-auditory effort because of my hearing loss (who wants to work that hard at an impossibility?).  Remember Woodstock?  And “wahwah-wah-waahwawawah…wawaWAH-wah-wah?”  THAT’S my dilemma. Also a large percentage of programs seem boring, degrading, or even terrifying rather than inspiring or edifying.  And news...well...let us say it is slanted toward sensationalism at best.  But on another level (down deep where it counts the most) the TV can destroy opportunities for real-live-personal-communication/interaction for hours at a time.  That adds up to days of missed relationship.   

My opinion? Chronic television-watching exiles a human brain into a captive realm of passive numbness.   A place where creativity shuts down.  Where things like violence and arrogance subliminally impale the heart.  Tsk tsk.  Seems a shame.

Yes, yes, I know there are many potentially good things about television (Mr. Rogers?  Alton Brown? National Geographic?  Oldies like Lassie and Leave it to Beaver?).  Not all TV shows are created equal.  Still, I’m grateful a door stands between us.  I simply shut and gently latch it, so as not to cause a commotion, and co-exist in isolation (is that an oxymoron?).  Every once in a while I open it to see if *that other person* reposing like a prone mannequin in the recliner is still breathing.  I also check to see if said person needs sustenance like a bowl of mint ice cream and a chocolate brownie….and then I shut the door again and return to my own sanctuary where I practice obsessing over my own techno-addiction: the computer.

Tonight's Fiery Sunset