"Not all time is the same," says Wendy Wright. "It can be heavy enough to be a burden or so light it flies by." Yet, I believe there is a deep religious instinct to desire to order time so that the sacred, invisible dimension of life can be comprehended. Lent is a part of this sacred time. Here is the invitation again to follow Jesus through some of the most powerful experiences of life and to do it tethered to God. Here is feasting and friends, betrayal and temptation, death and new Life. We come again to take it all in, to learn new lessons, to pull on the tether and feel it tug out of the center our being. There is a tradition of intentionally making space for God during this time. Some fast, some spend more time alone, some walk and sing, some find those in need and journey more closely beside them. Whatever helps you, do it. Do something to make a fresh swept space for God's coming into your life, your heart, your dreams. One of the great questions of faith is especially poignant during the 40 days of Lent: What is God's will? In Wright's fine book on Lent-Easter, The Rising, she offers this: "If you think you sense the will of God in your life in some long-range, highly detailed plan, something you can see stretching out with clear goals and successes into the future, that is not the will of God. If, however, you have an insistent sense that the next, very hesitant step beyond which you can see nothing is in fact the step that must be taken, that is most likely the will of God for you. What are we assuming when we ask to know God's will? Are we imagining a God who, like the master planner, has a five year, ten year, or lifetime plan mapped out for us to figure out what it is? Do we harbor such a deterministic notion of divinity? Are our discernments basically concerned with getting it right, with making the right choice that down the road we will be able to see as correct because everything came out in the end in a neatly wrapped, manageable package? Do we live with this sort of tidy, self-protective, predictable kind of God? I prefer to rephrase the question and thus to reframe the reference somewhat. I ask instead, "What is God longing for our lives? Such a reframing will situate us in the arms of God who desires the fulfillment of creation, who longs for justice, mercy, and love to dwell among the creatures and the created world made in the divine likeness. We are unique, unrepeatable, loving responses to the divine desire...the path I walk is neither predetermined or clear cut. It is forged in the process of walking day by day, listening deeply to the silence brooding beneath the noisy instructions issuing from without and within our hearts. God's will is not a puzzle to be solved but a mystery to be lived into. It is a mystery whose contours emerge as we journey on." (pp.35-36) May you know that the journey is always, and in all ways a journey home. "Nothing can separate us from the love of God!" Rom. 8:39 Rody |