let go
To part with sarcasm’s drips, acid
burning on my tongue, corrosive and scalding
a hole in my soul;
I know the true beneficiary, me.
Category: My Story
Hatred’s Sweet Kiss (a poem)
Hatred’s sweet kiss deceives,
leaving me battered, shattered, and alone.
Only holy soul work undoes
the damage of deep aching;
ravages of original toil,
wanting to be God.
Lessons from the Monastery: One of Five
Entering the monastery there is a sense of stepping outside of the line of time — real-time. You have entered into kairos . God time, as Eugene Peterson calls it.
The people I encountered at the Holy Wisdom monastery were kind. You couldn’t tell who was who. They may play a role in the running of the monastery. You don’t know. I shook hands with a middle-aged woman with short salt and pepper hair, in a pristine suit, who did not give me her name, even when I gave her mine. I found it odd and I learned later from my mother that she’s the boss of the place. The Holy Mother? Not being too familiar with the Benedictine traditions, I simply smiled when she did not give her name. I am a “go with the flow” kind of person, but I’ll admit it felt strange.
When you enroll, you are asked your goals or intent for coming. Oh dear, “my mother invited me” isn’t quite right. Reading the luncheon topics is what convinced me to attend; today’s was Bearing with One Another. Next week’s will be Stability and Balance in Relationships and Prayer. It will be five weeks in all during Lent. “Creating space to listen” was my final goal, scribbled quickly on the form, wondering what God might do if I was quiet for that long—listening for him.
I find life is so full of learning of late, that I don’t even have time to apply. That’s nuts. Church attendance, doing, and serving – well, it’s all meaningless if we cannot, do not take in what we’re learning and be transformed by it.
Nevertheless what I heard today could very well change me forever, if I allow it.
Recently I was the recipient of some soul care, which served to do a work of healing in my life that profoundly changed me. A good woman, she is a healing servant by night and doing servant by day. Efficient and skilled though she is in her day-to-day life, she took several hours to listen to me, unknowingly being a part of a life-giving healing.
I brought years of pain, bitterness, misunderstanding, dejection, feelings of rejection and being disregarded. I felt so much pain that when I started to talk I began to weep. Not simple crying mind you.
This was the aching heart of a person stuck in sin.
I couldn’t speak, often. Unperturbed, she listened. She didn’t touch me. She didn’t pray. She didn’t say much of anything, though she had some words to encourage – breathing out with kindheartedness and veracity, both of my sin and of my giftedness. Of my culpability and the tragedy of it all. And as I spoke I knew.
This was a holy moment. We were not alone. This was kairos time. She attended to me and as she did calcified thoughts and feelings came unstuck and God knows how long I’ve carried this pain, some of it over a decade; it began to wash away. It was holy. It was sacred. Monumental. Transformational.
Over and done, by listening.
I learned today this type of listening is called kenotic listening. It is characterized by reverencing what is sacred in someone else. So often, when interacting with each other, we dwell on all their faults. Their failings, their annoying bits and pieces, even how they disappoint us or let us down. A kenotic listener affirms the good in others.
- Letting go of expectations that are likely unrealistic or self-serving.
- Letting go of trying to change another person’s behavior.
- Letting go of the desire to control outcomes or choices.
- Choosing not to criticize.
- Letting go of judging or negativity.
- Letting go of your reluctance to forgive another.
Kenotic listening means giving up our desire to be heard, to pay attention to what the other person needs to say. Creating space for them to speak. Suppressing the urge to jump in with advice or simply interrupt with a differing opinion, or to argue our point. It means being less focused on yourself and what you next want to say. Opening your spirit to what the other person needs and wants.
Taking on patience as a way of life, which is the only way to bear some else’s burden. Yes people are temperamental, argumentative, self-righteous, rude and obnoxious, even stupid sometimes. But we are called to bear with them. Yes, some people can be mean-spirited, arrogant, close minded and selfish. We care called to bear with them. Yes, some people make inconvenient demands on us, yet we are called to bear with them. Some people can be hard to get along with, and yet we are called to bear with them.
Phylo of Alexandria is quoted saying “Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a huge battle.”
“Have compassion for everyone you meet, even if they don’t want it from you. What seems like conceit, bad manners, or cynicism is always a sign of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen. You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone.” – Miller Williams
This is it.
I had a festering sore, down deep inside where the spirit meets the bone. I didn’t know how to heal myself. I didn’t always want to heal.
I talked. She listened. It was a sacred holy moment where true church happened – ekklesia.
Spiritually, emotionally and physically I will never be the same.
It was a holy moment, where time was pregnant with what the Holy One intended. I shared all the ugliness of my inner most soul and with no guilt or religiosity, I was loved.
These are thoughts inspired by Trisha Day who spoke at the monastery yesterday. She gave me a name for what happened to me and offered a challenge to be that sort of person – a kenotic listener. To revere what is sacred in others, to know they are fighting a huge battle, often alone. Seek to build up not tear down. Ask myself how I react to others thoughts and ideas? Am I respectful? Do I allow others to annoy me? Do I affirm what is good in them?
Kenosis means an emptying of me, giving up more than getting, and letting go of the need to be heard. Listen well and deeply. Stop myself from offering “sage” wisdom or advice, from jumping in.
Just listen.
Have compassion with everyone you meet.
It’s a high calling; a holy challenge for everyone is suffering in some way, life brings challenge and pain, sometimes unbearable pain.
We can blast. Ignore. Correct. Challenge.
Or we can embrace a holier moment, a holier calling of acceptance, endurance and trust.
MH
Trisha Day is a member of Sunday Assembly at Holy Wisdom Monetary, a Lay Cistercian associated with New Melleray and Mississippi Abbeys near Dubuque, Iowa. She is the author of Inside the School of Charity –Lessons from the monastery.
Logic & Imagination
Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a huge battle. — Phylo of Alexandria
I am still processing time I spent today, alongside my mother and a lot of mostly grey haired women, at the Holy Wisdom monastery. And my ten-year old turns eleven tomorrow, so life will be a little full over the next twenty-four hours with ice-cream cake and video games, rides here and there, and the flow of life as a mother of four.
While I mull on what I have learned, I thought you might enjoy seeing the list of the top ten articles on my blog this month. A few are recent work, but I was surprised to see that several are oldies but goodies like What’s a Woman of Leisure?, On Parenting Deeply and Well, and the ebb and flow.
It is an incredible honor to know that you all are reading and walking with me.
My Spiritual Eyes are Stinging
From listening to a QIdeas talk with Eugene Peterson on the Sabbath.
I must stop trying to be God.
Which means also stop trying to prove myself. Stop with the interminable, frantic burden of finding my place in the world. Yes, there is a dignity to work – any kind of work—even house work. But when we inflate our worth by acting like what we do is everything — it’s something, then we put ourselves above God.
When our “moral sweat” brings our sense of value, it blinds us to God at work and our spiritual eyes are left stinging.
“We want to be like God.” said Eugene Peterson.
Sabbath living is … to show up. Then, shut up.
Knowing that God is doing something, we are to live in response it. Otherwise, it’s only an oppressive ritual. Religious devotion deprived of meaning. Eugene Peterson even asserts that programs sometimes can keep us from finding community in churches.
I’ve reflected for a long time on what it means to be Christian community to one another. Unabashedly knowing that I’ve lived most of my life feeling as if there’s a giant, lonely even gaping hole inside me that I cannot seem to fill up. Family didn’t do it. Work didn’t do it. Creating doesn’t do it. Motherhood didn’t do it. Being married didn’t do it. Drinking really didn’t do it. Being a part of things doesn’t do it. Serving doesn’t do it. There will never be enough friends — the right sort of friends. Work. Hobbies.
Nothing fills it that gaping, God sized hole.
Shutting up and showing up is how God fills that gaping hole inside us. It is the most repeated commandment in the Bible. And ironically Jesus was accused, of all the radical things he did which were many, of not keeping Sabbath well.
“God is working when we are sleeping.” said Eugene Peterson. “We live in a toxic culture that doesn’t understand the need for Sabbath – our world is full of compulsively and insecurity.”
Rarely do we sit, play, see, breathe in slowly, and just be.
Creating active space for nothing,
knowing that when you pray you are not accomplishing.
Learning an awareness that God is doing something and you don’t have a clue what it is—
it is a constant surrendering.
I keep being struck reading the Torah (the first five books of the OT) by when Moses and Aaron are confronted by the failings of the people of Israel – the abject poverty of soul, their errors, constant rebellion and the sinful nature of the people, they fall face down. Moses and Aaron, that is — over and over again. (I wonder how many times it is repeated?)
They fell, face down.
How do we fall face down—letting go—surrendering ourselves? Literally. Figuratively. Moses and Aaron did it over and over again.
I’m starting to think, just possibly, that I’m meant to live with that hole in my heart. Perhaps even, I am supposed to acknowledge it and
let God do the filling up.
Just maybe, he made me that way for a reason, so that I would never okay without him— never totally content — never fully joyful— never imagine that I’m in control—living always humbled by my need for the Holy encounters with him.
It’s living in constant surrender. Face down, a kairos surrender to the Holy One.
“Take my tired body, my confused mind, and my restless soul into your arms, and give me rest, simple quiet rest.” — Henri Nouwen
MHH
On Writing, On Being
I’ve been thinking a lot about my traumas and God’s grace, about sin and God’s grace, about my separation from God, actually pushing God away, and the act of drawing near to him again. About the things in our lives that keep us from total dependence. My life, to be clear, my dependence.
I find it interesting the pathways we travel in life. For me, being at home, working solidly on my writing now for months, even years, perfecting my craft, reading and writing, studying scripture, and rethinking how I read the Bible, learning the Story of the Bible. Rethinking what it means to be a woman in the evangelical church. Being healed, yes coming utterly unstuck with regards to bitterness over women in the EFCA denomination and specifically feeling ignored, unheard, and unimportant and then chastised for being so outspoken, but simply wanting to talk with others about their experiences as women in ministry, and not finding people like that except online. Years of feeling very alone in all respects about all these things.
And then there is the writing; being challenged by two friends (one being my husband) to write, and remembering the others over the last year or two. I should take up with Nike because writing, really comes down to just doing it. Right?
Sure, you need a plan. Perhaps there is a proposal for a book. You need connections, eventually an agent or a publisher. But first, you must simply be willing to write; to occupy your story and to portion out your life experiences for others; be exposed and yet trustworthy with yourself and others. That’s the objective, but even as one engraves their story on the “page”, lives, shares, replies to others. There is the parallel deepening comprehension that you must remain vulnerable and open to the Holy Spirit, to growing in the faith journey, to see God work – in his most miraculous, deeply challenging, sometimes abysmal challenges, promptings, and difficult though it may be – to grow! As the scriptures are open before me, to thank God for the challenges, the scares, the mistakes, and the sin. He won’t turn away from me.
Writing is about remembering, acknowledging the power of God in my life. It’s about believing and knowing. Not being perfect. And as the two paths run parallel I suppose the challenge is to not allow the writing overtake the growing, the life story outshout the holy spirit and the narrative of scripture and all that should and is doing inside me.
And so, this place will be less a place of perfection but a place of perfecting.
Perhaps you will enjoy the process. I thank you for your grace as you journey along.
My Sobriety and My Sin
“… And lately I wonder if Christians aren’t the most miserable of addicts–and if the fact of our faith itself isn’t part of the reason. After all, aren’t we supposed to be new creations in Christ, freed from the power of sin? Because we tend to think of addiction this way—strictly as a moral failing—we try to pull ourselves up by our spiritual bootstraps. We pray harder, repent more fervently, and fight temptation until we’re blue in the face.” – Sober Boots, a blog by Heather Kopp
After reading Heather’s thoughts last night I read several of the comments from those who had extremely judgmental view of a person’s addiction recovery.
I was left with a hollow feeling inside. I found myself saying that addiction is not a sin. But then, thinking long and hard about it this morning, I realized that although I have never dealt with it there was an element of sin involved in my alcoholism.
I am always helped by talking to my husband Tom. I sought his comfort in the question, “It wasn’t sin, right, that I became an alcoholic? It wasn’t sin, was it? Is it?” He’s one of the least judgmental people I know, so when Tom said “Yes, it is in part it was sin, you had a choice . You cannot discount free will.” I had to listen.
(And then we launched into a wonderful conversation about James 3, our hierarchies of sin and the power of our tongue. “With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers these things ought not to be so.” James 3, ESV)
How is it that I fell into addiction?
How is it that I am sober today? My sobriety has taken inner strength of will and conviction. Was it God that has given me the strength to remain sober for three and a half years?
How much of my sobriety was tangled up in my conversion path, my faith walk, the gentle work of the Holy Spirit?
In some ways living free of addiction is a form of conversion, as Alyce M. McKenzie says, a turnaround from bondage to a self-destructive behavior to freedom that comes when we commit ourselves to the power of God.
But honestly I don’t recall some grand transaction, or moment, whereby I asked God to help me become sober and whamo I was healed. No, it was much, much slower. It was through the conviction of the Holy Spirit and a final ultimatum-of-sorts made by my husband converging within twenty-four hours, that I made a choice to finally quit.
But the conviction had been building for some time – though choosing sobriety took years.
I was pretty sure I was addicted to alcohol when my sisters and I attended the family program at Hazeldon at the request of my mom. It was there that I learned for the first time about the illness of addiction, more importantly about the brain pathways of an addict, about codependency, about the hell we create for others by our words and sarcasm, about the strength sometimes to be found in Al Anon and Alcoholics Anonymous. (**I say more about AA below) After meeting with a doctor there, acknowledging my depression and how much and how often I was drinking, she said they could justifiably commit me to the residential program. But I couldn’t do it — couldn’t accept the need to quit totally. Didn’t believe it was that bad. I went home and spent the next five years or so on a slow decline. Not every day at that point. Not drinking to black out, yet. Not even really in that bad of shape, but an alcoholic for sure.
How many nights over the next few years did I go to sleep almost blacked out drunk. Only just able to stumble to bed – falling into the protective down covers, pounding head on the soft accepting pillows, heart aching with the pain of it all. Thinking – praying – crying out to God.
Making promises. Promising that tomorrow would be different. Promising myself that tomorrow I would not buy any wine. Tomorrow I would not drink myself to a disoriented, forgotten, insensible place. Hopeful that tomorrow would be different, only to fall into the same habit, experiencing the same amnesia as I was purchasing more alcohol.
The psychologist and spiritual counselor Gerald May in his book called Addiction and Grace defines addiction as “any compulsive, habitual behavior that limits the freedom of human desire.”
I found myself, day after day, month after month, year after year, for more than five years being fairly certain that I was an addict and yet choosing the same path. I thought I could be a social drinker. I didn’t want to stop, not really, for a long time. Wine and other alcohol was like a lover. I look back now knowing it clearly, seeing it objectively that it was an idol, yes, more important than anything else. Alcohol was my reason for living. I gave it the space and place in my life much more important than my health, or the welfare of my family, or my commitment to God. So, yes, there is an element of choice. And in that free choice it was a sin.
But sadly as Christians we have a hierarchy of sin – infidelity and addiction being at the top. Why? I suppose it doesn’t even matter ultimately. They were my choices, though compelled by the illness in my brain and the broken state of my heart. I made them. I chose.
And where was God? Well, I stopped seeking him. I closed off from him the part of me that was an addict. I cannot fully describe how I lived with myself spiritually in those years except to say that I was numb even while being wracked with guilt. I was self-medicating. I was depressed. I felt hopeless. I turned away from God. This is a poem I wrote at one point in my recovery, titled Days Without God.
she walked away from hope,
traveled the road of unkept promises.
and god was far away.
days without number
she ran down that road,
of fleeting pleasures
and god turned away
unable to see
unable to be with her.
though she can never deny going,
after a time, she turned
and walked back.
she was broken and bleeding.
the moment she turned back
she felt the presence
and then, god forgave.
For these choices I had to ask my husband’s forgiveness. Someday I will do the same with my children when they are old enough to understand. From the friends who lived beside me and saw the destruction of alcohol in my life, I covet their forgiveness. Family members who saw and lived and wondered and were wounded by me, they too I need forgiveness and grace.
I live with the knowledge of my walking away from God. I live with the knowledge that I did that every day, I chose it. I cling to God now. I relish his forgiveness and I acknowledge my sin. His grace is enough.
To those accusers, the ones that throw out the accusation of “sin!” like Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, I say this. No matter who we are or what we have done, in Christ we are given a new life of repentance and dignity where there is no place for legalism and guilt. This is a life of grace. Only God knows our hearts. He is there with us, if we cry out to him. But recovery, that is a long difficult walk and by no means something that just happens by surrendering to God. I know this.
But I also know that He walks it with us if we ask him. Look at John 8, Jesus asking where are your accusers? “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
Do I know how that transaction works, ultimately? Not really, but it is for me now found in the daily choice to be sober. Did Jesus think she’d be free of sin them then on? Nope, not likely and there was parts of her life she had to choose to walk away from. Alcoholics must do this in order to recover.
I cannot cast stones at others, no matter their “sin.” Grace and peace is found in the knowledge that I am not judged either.
“… and I’m still learning how to hack and slash through this beautiful jungle of grace.” Stephen
MH
** I do not work my sobriety with AA (Alcoholics Anonymous). I don’t personally find AA all that helpful, though for a time I was greatly encouraged by attending a weekly meeting with women. I walked into that room and experienced like I never have in my life a level of understanding, empathy and acceptance. No condemnation. We were all alcoholics and other forms of addicts. No pointing of fingers. In a way that the Church doesn’t seem to be able to live out — the idea that we’re all sinners together in this mess of a world. All sinners. All saints. All walking the path together. Why is it that (some) Christians are the most judgmental of all?
I longed for (and still sometimes do) church to be a safe place for me to go and find help with my recovery, but my church at least doesn’t offer anything for addicts. Not sure why when they have divorce-care, and grief-care, and cancer-care among many other kids of “care.” It does feel like they are strangely silent on this. I was helped by an addiction specific counselor, fortunate enough to have it covered by insurance, and spent more than six months in weekly therapy working through many aspects of my addiction as well as learning about the disease’s power.
Can I “forget” that I’m a Woman while at Church? Forgetting and Forgiving
For a long time, I’ve been angry; allowing myself to root about, sullied by my feelings–ashamed. And oh, so hurt. Hurt by my church not taking a brave, outward stand on women in leadership.
Then, over the last few months God has taken me on a journey, though it began many years ago. The Holy One has helped me to “forget” that I’m a woman at church. Turning off my “feminist radar” so that I can fully receive from scriptures and teaching. And not be caught up all the time in the women’s issue. This has been good. I am being healed in many respects. For me personally, I have to let it go. Forget about it. Forgive.
I read with a feminist lens and this especially true when reading the Bible. Because of my precarious journey of self-understanding, as I have grown in my knowledge of being a feminist Christian woman, I needed to know and learn the stories of the women in the Bible. When reading the OT with Eat This Book, I found myself overly conscious – hyper aware of every time a woman is mentioned or our story ignored. As you can imagine, this was causing me no end of frustration and anger (being a bad tourist in a culture foreign to me, I suppose) when the Old Testament is so definitely a patriarchal, androcentric collection.
I ask how women pull out the truth for ourselves, when we are reading the OT, when many verses in scripture have an interpretation and very likely the translators came to it with bias and agendas. I had to let go of that. Let it go free for now.
I am learning to read the Bible for the big story, the meta-narrative at least for now. Fly high over these books, look for major themes. Not sweat the details, for now.
Our church is strongly recommending the ESV study Bible. I have resisted purchasing the ESV. I learned recently that there were no women on the team of contributors, the oversight committee and the review scholars. This strikes me as a significant backward choice. I must admit to feeling dismayed. Both the English Standard Version (ESV) and the New Living Translation (NLT) which I love reading, down-play the ministries and roles of New Testament women in their translations and show a bias about women and leadership. This doesn’t discount all the rich, important amazing scholarship. But it sullied it, for me, that no women biblical scholars were included.
I bring the NRSV to church when I want to know quickly, which verses apply to me as a human being. (Of course I know they all do, but it’s still irksome to have to think about it, when a verse says Man and Men and it means human or people. It so limits the joy of opening scripture to have to think about it and I find that extra step of thinking takes away from my ability to hear the sermon for all its full meaning. I do wish that teachers if they are aware of when a version is particularly biased in the translation of particular verses, could/would point it out. But that’s a pipe dream for now, perhaps, at least for this church. Forget about it. Forgive.
I was gently reminded by a new friend on Facebook that our dialogue about women can become ghettoized (which I’ll confess I don’t totally understand what she means) but I do understand that we need to be laden with grace in all we say. And in particular where there is pain involved, it seems all the more significant, even profoundly so to to find within ourselves the strength to be gracious and even pray for those that we disagree with.
As I grow, I am often convicted by the truth that my tone and heart are so often not like that. And I am reminded to “Learn to write your hurts in the sand and to carve your benefits in stone.”
It is a unique dance too, when you (may) feel called to be a bridge person, (may) be called to challenge injustice of all kinds. This doesn’t mean that we can do it with a tone of bitterness and condemnation, rather we should be at peace and speak with genuine grace and love.
Let it fly free. Yes, oddly and quite gratefully, I am learning to “forget” that I’m a woman while at Church. For now.
MH
I highly recommend the blog of Margaret Mowczko, a NT scholar. Her writings have greatly influenced me, even for this blog post. Her blog New Life has a rich set of articles, but I particularly point to her articles on Gender Equality Issues. This is the one on Bible Translations, that I referenced above.
I have not read it, but a friend recently recommended Mark Strauss’ book, “Distorting Scripture? The Challenge of Bible Translation and Gender Accuracy” (InterVarsity, 1998). His book argues for gender neutral translations.
I know that this idea of “forgetting” I’m a woman will really bother strict feminists. Sorry about that. It’s just something that is working for me, for right now. I will never truly forget. It’s more like a word picture of an idea that I’m embracing for right now.
The End of the Story is the Beginning
The end of the Story is the Beginning, when things start. Life in abundance received.
Without the Sacrifice I am nothing. Left to myself I am wholly a mess. Trust broken, hearts wrought. Fists clenched. Empty all. Naked, ashamed. Afraid to be known.
The beginning of the story was precision, perfect peace. Equal before God and one another.
Then humanity violated itself. Craving to rule, clutching power. We became a destruction, heart violation, betrayal. Damage done. Then world-weary. Worn out, simply used to being broken hearted. We forgot.
The end of the Story is the Beginning.
We know the end of the story,
But we live in our alienation, self-interest and suspicion. We live broken.
And God’s saying to us, trust me. I alone make promises. I alone will provide. The end of the story is your launch.
Into new life.
Yahweh Yireh.
The LORD will provide.
To Lent or not to Lent, that is the Question
After spending the evening watching the Grammys and tweeting my snarky thoughts, last night my dreams were in Tweet format. Needless to say it was a long night. And when I woke this morning I was more than a little disturbed by it.
I got to thinking about technology’s power in my life.
Earlier this week, I read an article by Albert Borgmann on the subject of Taming Technology. For Borgmann, philosophy is a way of taking up the questions that live at the center of everyday life — questions that are urgent but often inarticulate. The philosophy of technology, which has been the principal focus of his work since the mid-1970s, is about bringing to light and calling into question the technological shape and character of everyday life. How do we gather technological devices together into the good life? How does technology shape a way of life? It is an interesting article. You should read it.
Lent is coming.
For Christians, the 40 days (plus Sundays) of Lent — the time between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday — is a time for reflection, renewal, and rededication.
But Lent has been a part of the Church life from the 2d Century on, and it’s a discipline and a season worthy of the entire Church. What is Lent? Essentially it is a time of preparation. As during Advent we prepare to celebrate the Advent of our Lord, so during Lent we prepare to enter in and participate in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In other words, it is a time for us to recollect our minds and hearts toward the saving events of our faith. The Church Calendar is designed to keep our lives connected week by week to the life of Jesus. — Scot McKnight
I’ve written about Lent before and have some links below. Many Christians don’t participate in Lent or take it lightly; perhaps giving up chocolate or caffeine as way of depriving ourselves. But Julie Clawson author of Everyday Justice and blogger at One Hand Clapping says about this most misunderstood event: “Lent isn’t about denial, it is about transformation. It is the season in which we prepare to encounter Christ’s sacrifice by endeavoring to become more Christ like ourselves. ” (Emphasis mine.) I could not agree more.
In preparing for Lent, I sometimes ask myself:
- Is there a habit (or even a sin) in my life that repeatedly gets in the way of my loving God or loving others? Ask God to get a hold of that habit over the next 40 days and help you have the discipline to give it to him, forever.
- Is there any one in my life with whom I need to pursue forgiveness or reconciliation? This may take longer than Lent. Here is a poem that I wrote during a time of profound grieving, knowing that I had done and said something that I thought was unforgivable. It’s titled Longing for Mercy. Ask God to begin to work in you and in the other person to ready you both for reconciliation in God’s perfect timing.
- What am I willing to give up to carve out extra time for daily contemplation and listening for the season of Lent?
- Lent begins next week, on Ash Wednesday, leaving time to ask God to show you what you need to stop doing to have more time with him.
I’m seriously considering letting go of Facebook for Lent. It often makes me anxious and confused and I wonder about its power over my mind and heart. Could I just let it fly away into the abyss of cyberspace for forty days and see what other more meaningful things I can fill it up with? I don’t know yet.
A Pastoral Word from Dr. Mark D. Roberts:
Let me note, at this point, that if you think of Lent as a season to earn God’s favor by your good intentions or good works, then you’ve got a theological problem. God’s grace has been fully given to us in Christ. We can’t earn more of it by doing extra things or by giving up certain other things in fasting. If you see Lent as a time to make yourself more worthy for celebrating Good Friday and Easter, then perhaps you shouldn’t keep the season until you’ve grown in your understanding of grace. If, on the contrary, you see Lent as a time to grow more deeply in God’s grace, then you’re approaching Lent from a proper perspective.
This is a good reminder. What about you? Do you take part in Lent and if so how has this been a powerful event in your life? Or not?
MH
A clear and powerful description of Lent by Dr. Mark D. Roberts , Senior Adviser and Theologian in Residence of Foundations for Laity Renewal, in the Hill Country of Texas outside of San Antonio.
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Other things I’ve written on Lent:
Lenton Series: Winter Slowly Receeds
Lenton Series: If you Were Homeless
Let your Fear Fly Free
So often, if I find myself returning in frustration and anger, again and again, to a subject.
When this happens I know that it has become an area of idolatry for me. Or it’s an area that God wants to heal in my life. Or both!
I’m a slow learner but I’m learning this about myself. About God. His Truth is a beautiful thing. Opening my heart to God’s voice in my life not easy, even unnatural.
How to you do that? How do you listen well? And when you know that you need healing by Him, how does this usually occur? That’s something else I’m learning to allow space for in my life.
For the longest time I drank to try to make that Ugly Thing (you name it) go away. I ignored God’s regular, persistent call. His knocking was gentle, consistent, reliable true. But I chose to numb myself with alcohol or shopping or other idols. But by self-medicating, aren’t we simply postponing the inevitable? Running from reality. Ignoring truth. Letting the Ugly Thing win.
Areas where I have seen this in my life recently, where I am letting go of my vice grip of control.
I’m letting fly free the issue of women in my denomination.
I’m letting fly free my need for a “paying job.”
I am letting fly free my need for significance and accolades.
I am letting fly free my self-loathing.
I am letting fly free my wish for my children to know Jesus as their Savior.
These are all things that I have tried to ignore how much they hurt, yes my big gut wrenching fears that control my mind and heart. And in the end the weight of them crushes my spirit. I cannot bear the weight of them any longer.
So I open my hands and I see them fly away knowing that the universe is God’s and he is in control of it all. He loves me, he loves them, more than I ever could. His desire for justice and truth to prevail in the Church is stronger than mine. And in fact he gave me this heart, that breaks and so easily comes undone.
And finally, his desire for me to be useful to him is less than his wish for me to know, fear, and love who he is, the Holy One.
He made me and he’ll carry me and all my fears.
May we be people open to God and able to let go of our need for control whatever it is — it’s so different for everyone. Let them go free into God’s hands, because is it not true that the Holy One is so much more capable than you or me?
What do you need to let fly free?
Faith Transforms Me, Sometimes.
My motto these days is to do the next thing — what’s straight ahead of me. In life, in faith, in parenting.
The next home task, the next creative project, the next scriptural study challenge — I choose to do this because I don’t know what else to do. So I do the next thing. I say yes to requests and a chance to help those in my immediate life. I want to be useful. This is tale about something l learned while trying to be helpful to a friend and be a good mom.
I should know to welcome an imminent challenge when I write about parenting. And I should also know by now that when I get intentional about any aspect of life, experiences come up that cause my “great” ideas to suddenly seem anemic held up to the light of day, real life.
One of my kids came home today particularly ornery.
Nothing I said was good enough. Or correct. Or useful. Finally when I had had enough I stormed off angry saying: “I don’t know why I bother to say anything around here.” (I know who’s the kid, right?) The more I thought about it, the madder I got. I was steaming, white hot mad and before I knew it, even slamming doors.
Fuming I went downstairs to fold their laundry. I decided if that’s the way she wants it fine. What if I simply refused to talk to her anymore? …. for a while, for a good long while. I’m thinking, yeah, I will pass information along via her brothers. That way I could make my point (which was that she doesn’t listen to my sage advice) and still get things accomplished.
Before long she came creeping downstairs. Still seething in my plans for my “cold-war” campaign, even though I knew that my plan would never work. Beyond the plain immaturity of the idea, it just wasn’t kind. And if anything, I try to always be kind.
“I’m sorry I don’t believe in Jesus” she says inaudibly. “Not right now.”
“What?” I asked breaking my short-lived resolve. In this moment, when a child says something like that, at least a thousand thoughts run chaotically through your head within the space of milliseconds. You’re dizzy from the swirl of emotion. Still, in these kinds of parenting moments, my main thought is stay calm.
I remind myself: Do not say anything you cannot take back! You cannot let on that you’re freaking out … no! It is not like the whole world is sinking.
How she even knows what she accepts as true is decidedly up for consideration. She is just a child. Stay calm.
She came home saying she didn’t want to go to church anymore. What was the point? Then, as well as now in this moment, I mostly listened. I said something vaguely like: “We just want you to continue going, so that you know what you’re choosing.”
I’m kicking myself. The last time we had this conversation I totally choked. Later, as I was telling Tom it was all so clear to him what he would have said. And with hindsight it was clearer to me as well. I should have been ready for this one, but instead of that I’m hyperventilating inside about MY BABY is rejecting my faith! (Perhaps only mothers know what I’m talking about here.) Yes, I’ve talked about this before, but I just can’t believe that at fourteen she’s already rejecting the Church, and by that I mean big C church. “I already know everything I need to know” she had said. And I think that was somewhere in the vicinity of when I stormed out of the room earlier.
“I’m sorry that I don’t believe in Jesus” she repeats. “Not right now.” And I looked her square in the eyes. And shrugged. Obviously I’m no Billy Graham. There will be no coercing from me. No broad explanations or great appeals for faith. I know that I understood less than nothing about spiritual things when I was her age, not really. I really couldn’t grasp the concept of substitutionary atonement at all. If someone had tried to convince me of it, I would have written them off completely.
I believe that one comes to an understanding of the truth of scriptures slowly, and a huge part of that is seeing others whose lives are utterly transformed by Jesus Christ. This is one reason I had so much trouble with my personal faith for more than two decades—I didn’t see people around me transformed. (Blame the Methodists and Presbyterians?)
So, I looked her straight in the eye. And shrugged, as I turned back to folding.
Later, I decided that I wanted her to come with me as I delivered soup to some sick friends. This is it! (I’m thinking I’m pretty brilliant.) She will see the feet of faith—the good deed, out of my love of my friends that makes me want to do kind things for others. This is it!
So with her mumbling loudly and her iPod blaring, with great drama and complaining, she got into my car as I put the Tupperware of soup on the floor between her feet.
After several questionings about why she had to come, we arrive. I reached toward her. She reached to hand me the soup, grabbing the handles of a grocery bag – and bam! Soup splattered everywhere. “Fuck! ” (Yes, that’s an exact quote)I yell: ” How could this have happened?!!” I fumed loudly glancing up at the house. Stomping around the end of the car, I see that there is soup top to bottom in my beautiful (if dirty) Honda—with a large portion of the soup on the floor, irretrievable. It was a colossal mess!
Again, we find me furious.
Ironically what I had intended to be an example of my benevolence turned into me a fuming and cussing, even accusing her, in my mortification!
Then a light bulb went off.
This isn’t about the “good deed” or about the soup spilling all over my car and daughter. And though I was tempted to blame her for the spill, it wasn’t even her fault.
This is about how I choose to handle it, right now. This is about me being transformed by Jesus.
Self-conscious about the half empty Tupperware, dripping with soup, I sheepishly rang the doorbell and delivered my soup. Then I went to the car and calmly drove home. At home, after collecting my thoughts, I told her “You don’t need to feel badly about this because it wasn’t your fault!” If anything, I should have warned her that it might be messy or risky to pick up.
So we cleaned up the car together, which was a lot like cleaning up vomit we both agreed, only it smelled really yummy. It was good soup. And we had another little disagreement. This time about whether “Drinking until you vomit” was the same as just social drinking. (Do I know a thing or two about that?) Still, she walked away from me into the house, sheeshing me about acting like an expert and saying that I was “wrong that I didn’t trust her ideas.” And I, once again, I was left alone fuming and wondering.
Now if she can just make the connection. If only I can too, more often be transformed.
Yes, faith transforms me, sometimes.
MH
But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. 2 Cor 3:18
Logic & Imagination 