I'm afraid that the following may just be a litany of scattered thoughts because I'm trying to figure out just what i'm thinking and how i want to say it as i'm writing.
I know that's probably annoying. You'll have to forgive it.
So, lent kind of snuck up this year, which is a bit ironic considering it took 1000 years for January to be over with. Winter messes with time. Everything is long and cold. Never the less, here we are 40-ish days form Easter, and I began the week with no plan.
I really love Lent. I am a human who loves roots, and traditions and also the church calendar. It's funny that even as i was younger, i always gave something up for during this season. Lutherans are not required to give anything up. We just enjoy the Wednesday Lenten Soup supper....because who doesn't love soup. It was never anything my parents did, really. So the fact that I even haphazardly did it as a teen ager who really had no idea of the profundity of this time...must mean that God was pursing me even then...to go deeper.
Over the last couple of years there have been a lot of things that I felt needed internal prayer, and with that things which i chose to abstain from. There were family crisis, and marriage crisis and new beginnings and unknown directions...things I whole heartedly believe we all made it though because of internal time we spent in surrendering it.
I've added devos and daily offices to my lenten repertoire. I've fasted in various forms...it's all been important in my spiritual development as well was just becoming a better human.
Anyway...i like lent, you get it. My point. This year, I didn't feel strongly about anything, really. There was nothing that kept popping up...so i wasn't sure. I knew I wanted to spend this season focused on gratitude, but i had (still have) no idea really, what that is going to look like...
But then, i started to pay attention....and "community" and the idea of being in it together and not being alone have been popping up literally everywhere.
If you have even existed in the same space i have occupied you know i'm super relationally focused. I love my people and I like to spend time in those relationships. As of late, I've sort of distanced myself from community. I mean sure there are some people whom i love and spend time with a lot but never in the way i used to. I've sort of retreated into this space where i've sort of stiff armed a lot of people into staying away.
But I think it's time to drop the armor.
Today I went to a funeral, and if there was one thing that resonated was that he was man who loved deeply, and was deeply loved by his community of people. He left a legacy of peace and love behind him. It was beautiful.
So i guess what i'm saying is that gratitude and community and love are my focus.
I am learning, always want it means to love people well, and I suspect that in the coming days and weeks, ill have more practice.
My prayer though this season is that I have eyes like Jesus. To see what people need before they ask, to love people in the way they most need it, to love people and myself well.
So, it's with hopeful anticipation that welcome this season, may it change me in way that makes me look more like jesus.
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