Tag Archives: lent

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The Pre-Lenten Roundup

Margaret got the baby in the king cake at church on Sunday. By Sunday evening he was living the suburban dream.

The other day I surveyed my Facebook friends to find out what people are doing to observe the season.

Besides reading this OF COURSE.

I have done a variety of things for Lent, ranging from nothing special to taking on an additional discipline, such as morning prayer or devotional reading. If you are inclined to add a spiritual discipline, may I recommend my friend Mary Allison’s practice of writing a letter each day? If you’re in Memphis you can even take a workshop on the topic!

I was recently drawn to this blog that describes “speed creating,” in which this inventive fellow spent 30 days making an amazing new thing each day. What would it be like to have Lent be a season for tinkering? It doesn’t have to be elaborate, like the thread light:

I like the idea of creating something for Lent. It speaks to me of the tradition of repentance, but in a novel way. One definition of repentance is to “go beyond the mind that you have.” What could be more in keeping with that than to repurpose the things of our lives? After all, we are moving toward Easter, the ultimate story of transformation and repurposing. Death gives way to new life. An instrument of violence becomes the place where God’s forgiveness is proclaimed.

But as captivated as I am by these practices, I will be giving something up instead. I am in a Meister Eckhart-ish place, who said that the spiritual life is a process of subtraction.

The truth is, I am feeling like Bilbo these days: “thin, sort of stretched, like butter, scraped over too much bread.” I am feeling the need for some space, friends. So something is going to go.

I’m a little wary of Lenten fasts as nothing more than self-help couched in spiritual terms: I’m going to give up sweets so I can lose some weight! Self-improvement is a good thing, but is a new exercise regimen during Lent really devotional at heart, or is it a second chance at the New Year’s resolution? (That said, I think some people take the hand-wringing a bit far.)

When I give something up, it is a reminder to breathe and pray, to experience radical contentment, and to remember that the object of my fast is not the “one thing needful,” as much as I may crave it in that moment.

An example: a friend of mine is going to give up bread, so that the only bread she consumes during Lent is communion bread, what we call the bread of heaven. I’ll bet you good money that she will lose weight during this time. But do you see how weight loss is not at all the focus?

I still haven’t decided what I will be giving up, but it’s been a topic of conversation in our house. The girls have suggested we all give up desserts. I think we’re going to do this. Dessert has become a point of contention in our home—I am soooo tired of the constant needling, the negotiating, the comparing of cookie sizes. Having that whole issue off the table (pun intended) feels very spacious to me. But I’m still pondering how it connects us to Spirit.

What do you think? Those who observe Lent, what will your practice be?

One final thing. To those folks, mostly non-religious or de-churched, going around saying “I’m giving up Lent for Lent”…

Yes, I’ve heard that one.

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A Rising Tide Lifts All Books

The cover of Ruth's devotional guide. Don't you want to go to the Holy Land?

My friend Ruth Everhart and I both have Lent Devotional guides coming out this year. You can read about both of them here at RevGalBlogPals.

It is easy to get into competitive mode with one’s creative endeavors, and to feel like if one person does well, then that means less of the pie for you. And let’s be honest—few of us are going to order two Lent devotionals. (Let’s be honest even further and say that for many of my readers, one Lent devotional is a stretch. Ahem.)

But Ruth and I are in a writing group together, and we scheme about creating a writers’ guild that would support, cross-promote, maybe even co-publish our work. If she does well, I’m happy. It’s also good for me. And vice versa. And if either of us does well, it’s good for the RevGals, the grandmama of online communities that I was honored to help form more than six years ago. (Grandmama? Yes. It’s kinda like dog years.) And one hopes that the reign of God is somehow illuminated too.

But what we all want, at the heart of it, is to write and be read. So order one of these books.

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Fellowship of Prayer: Preview

Clergy, DCEs, church education committees… this is for you.

I was grateful for the opportunity to write the Lent Devotional Guide for Chalice Press, available for order here at the low low price of $2.95. (E-PDFs available too!) Some of you have asked me if there is a place to get a preview of the content. For a while there wasn’t, though I see now that they’ve put up a link to the first few entries. But how about a preview here at the Blue Room too? Here are the first few entries to give you a feel for the whole thing…

Introduction

Dear Reader:

As a child, I loved going through my grandparents’ encyclopedias. A favorite section was on the human body, with intricate, full-color diagrams of the circulatory system, muscles, nerves. Each system was illustrated on its own clear plastic page, so you could view it on its own, or you could lay them on top of each other—organs on top of arteries on top of bones. And then there was the skin that covered everything underneath it—an entire universe, encased in human flesh, fearfully and wonderfully made.

Life feels like this—layers upon layers, laid on top of each other. There are carpools and dinners with friends, oil changes and books due at the library. There are friends in the hospital, bills to pay, tensions with a family member, a presidential election looming, a never-ending onslaught of news and punditry. There’s that guy on the park bench, his worldly possessions crammed in a purloined grocery cart. There’s the sweet little girl in your son’s fifth grade class who just arrived in the U.S. and speaks no English. There’s the neighbor who gets on your last nerve. There’s the church committee meeting.

Life goes on as usual during between now and April 8, but with a new layer: the season of Lent. For some of us, Lent means intentional scripture reading, or giving up an indulgence through Easter, or an increased commitment to prayer, or daily reading of the book you now hold in your hands. But our life of faith is not just a set of tasks like any other. It is the circulatory system, our lifeblood, the heart that pumps life into us and keeps us going. Or perhaps it’s the nervous system, the center of feeling and awareness. Or perhaps it’s the skin—the flesh that enfolds everything else we do.

Lent can be all of these things, and more, if we give ourselves fully to the season, its themes, and its practices. Take a deep breath, and let us begin.

MaryAnn McKibben Dana

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Ash Wednesday • Feb 22

We Are Dust

Read Psalm 51. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

Tonight, many of us will attend worship services in which we receive ashes on the forehead along with the stark words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” In a death-denying culture, it is one of the more radical things we do. Anthony Robinson, a pastor and writer, served a congregation that decided to have an Ash Wednesday service for the first time, followed by a community concert. When Robinson looked out on the crowd that night, his sermon about sin and brokenness clutched in his hands, he realized that many people in the sanctuary were from the greater community. How would they react to an extended time of confession? Would the imposition of ashes feel weird or punitive?

The next day he was walking with his wife in a sketchy neighborhood in town—lots of folks sporting tattoos and piercings. A young woman with both of these, plus wild multi-colored hair, stopped him. “You’re that pastor from last night, aren’t you? What you did, and what you said—it was so meaningful. It was awesome.”

We are dust, and to dust we shall return. We are dust, all of us—the pastor and the wild-haired young woman, and the toddler and the nonagenarian. Our time is short upon this earth. Only God endures forever. In the meantime, what are we living for? What are we willing to give ourselves to? We long to belong to something larger than ourselves. But what is that something? The ashes, marking us with the cross, proclaim the answer. We belong to God. Even in our frailty and finitude, a good and powerful God loves us. That is the gospel message of Lent.

Dear God, help me to live in hope this Lent. I am your child. Amen. 

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Thur • Feb 23

From the Ashes

Read Isaiah 43:18-19. Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing.

Her name was Isabella Baumfree, but most of us know her by the name she chose for herself, a free woman: Sojourner Truth. A gifted preacher and activist for abolitionism and women’s rights, she aroused controversy whenever she spoke. On one occasion, when she was greeted by hissing and booing, she responded, “You may hiss as much as you please, but women will get their rights anyway. You can’t stop us, neither.”

One day, while preparing to speak in Indiana, word came that someone had threatened to burn down the building if she spoke there. Sojourner said, “Then I will speak upon the ashes.”

The message is clear: nothing would stop Sojourner Truth—not hatred, not intimidation, and certainly not a lit match touching dry wooden beams. If necessary, she would stand tall on the charred remains of that building, a living testimony that oppression and ugliness are not the final word. Liberation, beauty, truth—these things prevail.

Ashes are a reminder of our mortality, to be sure, but they are more than that. They are a reminder that life can erupt from death. God’s creation testifies to this again and again, as forests are decimated by fire, only to burst with green in seasons to come. Lent testifies to this too.

You are about to do a new thing, powerful God. Give me eyes to see it, and the words to testify to what I see. 

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Thanks for all of your support and encouragement, friends. If the devotional suits your needs or that of your congregation, I’d be honored if you checked it out.

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Lent: You’re Probably Doing It Wrong

I’ve been reading some discussion regarding this article by G. Jeffrey McDonald. McDonald laments the way that Lent is frequently observed within American Christianity and says:

We’re remaking [Lent] as a type of spiritual self-help whose effectiveness is measured by how well it entertains us and affirms what we already believe. Since Americans love parties and hate to do without, Christianity is evolving to deliver. The diminution of Lenten practices illustrates the trend and highlights what’s lost when religion becomes a consumer commodity.

I don’t deny elements of truth in what McDonald is saying. In fact the article strikes me as a very satisfying read for us church leaders, what with its hand-wringing, self-righteous tut-tuts and in-crowd high-fives.

It bugs me to tears, actually.

Please don’t misunderstand me. Consumerist Christianity is a big issue. And certainly the church has a prophetic duty to call people to deeper authenticity and radical discipleship. But this article smacks of caricature. McDonald characterizes Lent as a “joke” based on one comment from a friend. And “sumptuous” fish dinners on Fridays? This is the normative American Christian experience?

This kind of “you’re doing it wrong” carping is not productive. All of this reminds me of the discussion we had on this blog back in December about singing Christmas carols in the church during (gasp!) the season of Advent. I argued back then that maybe, just maybe, some people feel drawn to the music of Christmas during December not because they are worshiping the gods of Best Buy and Wal*Mart, but because they desperately need to immerse themselves in a message of Joy Right Now, to soak it up, because the world is a pretty dark place. Can we treat people like grownups and say that perhaps they have a good sense of what their hearts and spirits need without us telling them?

Why don’t we spend our time helping people connect their Lenten practices, whatever they might be, to the presence of the living God, rather than diagnosing those practices as inadequate? I know a woman who committed to run each day during Lent. I guess I can chide her for disrespecting Lent as a season for “spiritual self-help”… or I can help her make the connection between that practice and stewardship of the body, which Paul calls the temple of God. Heck, daily physical exercise sounds like a struggle to beat the sin of sloth, which last I checked was one of the seven deadlies! What could be more Lenten than that?

(BTW, this is part of the tension within the Sabbath stuff. Lots of people take time off for R&R and don’t call it Sabbath. Good for them. So my job isn’t to say “Well unless it’s got the Sabbath imprimatur, it’s only second best.” Instead, maybe I help them see ways that their practice of rest and play doesn’t just recharge the batteries, but connects them to a deep wellspring of joy and grace that [I believe] is a gift of the Holy.)

I appreciate these two posts on the Christian Century blog, both of which bring some much-needed nuance to the topic. I found the latter especially on point:

Is “true deprivation” really the point of fasting, or is true fasting measured by the extent to which it turns us toward God? Deprivation for deprivation’s sake could easily become competitive or self-aggrandizing. Biblical writers frequently make the point that God isn’t interested in displays of piety but in justice and love.

Amen.

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Giving Up Should for Lent

I have an unofficial goal (call it an intention) of posting to the blog each weekday, with Friday being a short roundup of links I found interesting throughout the week. But that’s not always possible, or even feasible. Sometimes there isn’t anything to say, and anything I do would be forced. Sometimes my kids are sick. Like, today.

So instead I want to share this article about reading a book a week… or more to the point, not reading a book a week. And how that practice of “Not” takes on a special significance during the season of Lent:

The tradition of Lent lies in direct contrast to our culture’s belief in resolutions, our quick proclamations of will and self that are meant more for our personal gain than a real change of heart. And I need, as St. Augustine put it, a “new pure heart”; I believe that my reading habits reflect my own heart’s current needs, ones that resolutions bent on my own success cannot touch.

This article really spoke to me. As I shared in this post/sermon, during Lent I am letting go of my pursuits at excellence and intentionality, noble though they may be, or not. Instead, I am practicing contentment, even radical self-acceptance. Which sounds self-centered and very me-me-me but is, I’m finding, the exact opposite.

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Friday Link Love

Some things I enjoyed or found thought-provoking this week:

Stephen Colbert Gives Up Catholicism for Lent (video)

“Is this how Unitarians feel all the time?”

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What’s Your Personality Type… For Play?

For many adults, however, it’s surprisingly hard to know how to have more fun. If you don’t know what to do for fun, a good question to consider is: What did you do for fun when you were ten years old? Because that’s probably something you’d enjoy now, whether walking in the woods, playing with your dog, making things with your hands, taking pictures, playing basketball, or dancing around the living room.

I’m an 8 with a smattering of 5 and 7.

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Giving Up a Breast for Lent

Jan Edmiston is always outstanding, but this blog in particular spoke to me.

We randomly give up chocolate and coffee for Lent, but taking up the cross and following Jesus seems to be more about finding the cancers in our lives and giving those up – which is a much bigger deal. Imagine really giving up gossip. Giving up racism. Giving up living for the sake of appearances. So hard.

Jan is moving away soon… I’ll miss her so much when she leaves!

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The Strangest — and Maybe Best — Grilled Cheese You’ll Ever Make

Mayo instead of butter? Nuts grated with a microplane? I can’t wait to try this one.

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What We Can Learn from Procrastination

Great stuff on how our brain works. Special bonus: what’s wrong with the Netflix queue and how instant streaming can help.

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Songs for Lent

I like this little collection of music, based on the stations of the cross. I wrote off any music labeled as “Christian” a long time ago because I decided I didn’t like it musically. Mike Birbiglia understands what I mean… (video). I much preferred to be a sleuth for the Spirit, looking for messages of redemption in so-called “secular” music.

That’s still my default position, but I should not be so categorically minded.

Anyway, this stuff is haunting and lovely. Thanks to my friend Troy Bronsink for the recommendation.

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And finally, a request—keep me in your thoughts, prayers, heart, or whatever you’ve got. My book contract with Chalice Press stipulated that the manuscript would be due next March, but for a variety of reasons I won’t get into here, I’ve moved that up to October. It’s very doable, but still: o_O

I’ve never used that emoticon before. It’s a good inaugural use of it.