Lent Week Three

 

Today, I invite you to pray these words of Bishop Charleston with me.  Speak each word aloud slowly, letting the syllable slowly leap off your tongue, leaving behind a savory/spicy/sweet taste.  Pause at the end of each sentence to give what you just prayed aloud time to sing and sink into your soul.  Read and re-read, rinse and repeat, until these words have wedged their way into your heart and until God has been discovered in what you are praying.  These are God’s words to you:

 

Let me celebrate your outrageousness, your odd quirks, and your essential strangeness.  That’s what I like best about you; that is what I admire.  You not only move to the beat of a different drum, but you have a whole symphony.  You notice what many of us never see.  You find what the rest of us forgot we lost.  You have bypassed the need to be with the in-crowd and have created a community of dreamers.  I, for one, honor your weirdest vision and your most unconventional idea.  Without you, the world would be a bad movie.  So, from one oddball to another, thank you for being what you are not.  Steven Charleston

Lent Week 3 ~ Quote of the Day

 

I guess you could say I have a working-class spirituality.  I think you have to put a little sweat equity into what you believe.  You have to practice what you preach.  Justice does not just happen.  Compassion is not a spectator sport, but something I have to exercise as I roll up my sleeves to do my part in creating a better community.  I need to put in my hours as a volunteer.  I have to join the prayer crew and put my life on the line to make a difference.  The world will change not by wishes, but by the labor of love we call faith.  Spirituality is not a spa, but a construction site, where we build hope one heart at a time.  Steven Charleston

 

As you read the quote this morning, ponder, where are the calluses on your soul from having worked out your faith?  Paul says to the church in Philippi, “Work out your salvation/faith/life with fear (or awe or contemplation or openness) and trembling (or the beautiful uncertainty that we don’t know what we don’t know.  We all still are students in the class of Failure 101).  See Philippians 2:12.  We participate with God in building/remodeling our faith.  We participate in a Divine Dance where God infuses and inspires us.  God nudges us.  God works to escape through us, but our agendas and busyness make it difficult to sense the traces of grace.

 

Where have you had a working-class spirituality ~ sweat on the brow, callus on your hands, muscles strained and labored breathing kind of faith?  This might connect to the Morning Meditation from Tuesday, because my spirituality works hardest (perhaps too hard?) in times of difficulty.  In times of trouble, in times of ache when achievement won’t come, no matter how much I plot and plan, this is difficult.  In times of struggle and stress, working with God for justice, those can be the hardest moments.  When people keep choosing cruelty over compassion, hate over healing, bullying over vulnerable love.  When people keep skipping Failure 101, because they are perfect in their own minds.  Consider, who do you want to be with at a party?  Someone who has a bit of dust on their soul, ache in their voice, and laughter in their heart OR someone who continually says, “Well, I was born perfect and have achieved everything I ever wanted with barely breaking a sweat”?  Over-confident people have made gods of their own image and worship at the altar of the ego.  Too often, we are lured and led by such certainty as history rubs her forehead saying, “I am tired of repeating myself!!” 

 

I love Charleston, who says Spirituality, and the church/religion/faith, is not a day at the spa but a construction site.  So grab a hard hat, hammer, and roll up your sleeves today for the ongoing invitation of Micah to participate in God’s justice, to embody God’s love/kindness, and remember your human-size-ness each moment this day.  Amen. 

Lent Week 3 ~ Quote of the Day

 

A little laughter along the way never hurts.  A few smiles, sprinkling the brown sugar on oatmeal, help keep our daily reality from becoming relentlessly static.  Life is hard enough.  We need our sense of humor like a lifeline, bringing us back to balance, keeping things in perspective, offering us a chance to see light even in the midst of night.  The platypus and the camel are with us for a reason.  They remind us that at the core of creation is a heart full of whimsy.  Lauther is a gift with a purpose, for when we laugh, we pray.  Death may frown, but the soul finds a reason to smile every time. Steven Charleston

 

Today, I invite you to go do something that makes you laugh!  Yes, laughter and Lent can go together ~ or at least I am going to try to convince you to attempt that today!  Pull up YouTube videos of your favorite comedian.  Stream classic comedies you watched growing up.  Read a book of jokes.  Find joy today ~ or better yet ~ let joy find you in serendipitous and surprising and sacred ways that we all need in such a time as this.  And joy is a gift that longs to be shared with others.  It is wonderful to watch a comedian alone, but even better to share with someone else.  What brings you joy that erupts in laughter?  Let this be our prayer practice today.  Ready?  Set.  Go!

Lent Week Three ~ Quote of the Day

 

One of the spiritual skills we need to practice is how to deal with disappointment.  Prayer is not a vending machine.  We sometimes do not get what we request.  Life can constantly surprise us, and not always in a good way.  Someone else got the job we wanted.  Our bright idea was passed over by the very program we helped create.  It is not easy to come in last.  Disappointment is the price of admission for trying, and it often teaches us more than success.  Wisdom is the value of trying again, and it offers us more than we first wanted or ever expected.  Steven Charleston

As you read the quote above slowly, what springs off the screen immediately?  Sit with the first thing you noticed when you read the words.  Now sit with your reaction and response.  Let grace be part of the conversation.  If you disagree with the quote, ask, “Why”?  If you agree, still ask, “Why”?  If you are indifferent, what might that be about?

 

Re-read the quote slowly.  This time, allow the wisdom to resonate with your life.  When have you treated prayer like a vending machine, that if you just get the words right to God, it would be like feeding a wrinkled dollar bill into the vending machine slot?  When have you been surprised by your life?  Notice, I didn’t ask about being surprised by the news or your social media feed, but consider when you were surprised by your one wild and precious life this week?  When did disappointment pay an unwelcome and uninvited visit to your life?  Hold these sharp, jagged edges of your beautiful life.  Is there any wisdom you can now see reflecting like a rainbow through the shards where you once only saw brokenness?

 

Re-read the quote again, letting your mind, heart, and soul marinate in the message without having to respond or react or do anything other than sit quietly with these words.  This is the chance to turn off your brain for a few moments to be with the words.

 

Re-read a fourth time, considering how disappointment might be a teacher?  I know that I don’t want to enroll in Failure 101 as part of the curriculum of my life.  And because I resist this class, it continues to persist.  Because I sit in the back of Failure 101, doodling in my notebook, not paying attention to the teacher.  Because of this, I have to keep repeating remedial classes in Failure/Disappointment/Welcome to the Human Race 101.  How might what Bishop Charleston is saying to us be the balm to heal your wounded, aching soul today?  May these words settle and sing to our souls individually and collectively in these days.  Amen.

Lent Week 3 ~ Quote of the Day

 

I don’t know if I am spiritual or stubborn or a combination of both.  But the more the bad news piles up, the more determined I am to respond to it with the good news I feel so clearly in my mind and heart.  Yes, life is hard.  It is full of suffering and sorrow – and believe me, I have had my fair share.  But life is also beautiful, full of moments that are transcendent in their healing and love.  I know because I have been blessed by more of them than I can count.  I cannot change the reality of pain and loss, but I can claim the reality of grace and joy.  Maybe I am just stubborn, but I want my last word to be not a complaint but an alleluia.  Steven Charleston

 

This week, we turn to the wisdom of Steven Charleston.  He is a leading voice of justice for Indigenous people, the environment, and spiritual renewal.  He is a member of the Choctaw Nation and served as the Episcopal bishop of Alaska.  He was the president and dean of the Episcopal Divinity School and a professor at Luther Seminary.  He lives in Oklahoma with his wife. 

 

As has been our Lenten practice, each day you will be invited to engage in a sacred reading of a quote.  I encourage you to take time, slowly savor, and let the spirit of the words infuse/inspire your life.   

 

First, read the quote above, and notice/name your response.  How have you been stubbornly faithful recently?  What words/thoughts/stories are you clinging to?  You can listen to the stories you tell about yourself to others.  I wonder if there is a way you feel the Holy is clinging to you stubbornly?  Are you holding onto anger, anxiety, stress, your way, grace, love, complaint, or alleluia?  If you are like me, you just yelled, “Yes!!  All the above!!”  How is that shaping you?

 

Second, re-read the quote, this time letting it intersect your life.  Where are you trying to change the past reality of pain and loss?  How can the reality of grace, love, and joy enter into even that moment here and now?

 

Third, re-read the quote, and sit quietly with the wisdom of the words.  Maybe on this third reading, you notice something in the quote you missed the first two times through, or maybe you feel a sensation surge in your soul.  What is one truth you hear in the stillness of sitting with this quote that causes your heart to shout, “Hallelujah!!”

 

Finally, consider the quote: how might the words above inform and inspire your living today?  Be specific, where will you show up today differently because of what you are reading above?  Maybe it will be to share good news and God’s love where there feels like there is none.  Your prayerful intention doesn’t have to be drastic or dramatic, but move the needle of your soul a tinge in a new direction and toward the destination of God’s guiding grace this day.  

Lent Week 2 ~ Quotes

 

Lord, catch me off guard today. Surprise me with some moment of beauty or pain so that at least for the moment, I may be startled into seeing that you are here in all your splendor, always and everywhere, barely hidden, beneath, beyond, within this life I breathe.  Frederick Buechner

 

When have you been caught off guard by God recently?  The ability to be surprised is one of the holiest prayer practices in a world of information overload, where we may feel like there is nothing new under the sun.

 

When did you behold or feel held by the holy recently?  This doesn’t have to be splashy or spectacular, just an ordinary everyday moment you didn’t see coming ~ or a blink and you almost missed it kind of moment.

 

Have you picked up any new insight or questions so far on the road to resurrection this year?  Have you held the tension of crucifixion and resurrection ~ the terrible and beautiful ~ of life in a different way?  Doesn’t have to be some profound eureka moment.  Just a soft, tender, timid insight you may not utter aloud or see the light of day yet. 

 

Hold and be held, release and be received by a grace that longs to fill you each moment of this day.  Amen.  

Lent Week 2 ~ Quote of the Day

 

Resurrection means that the worst thing is never the last thing.  Frederick Buechner

 

After a few lengthy quotes from Buechner, we take time today with a single sentence.

 

A few questions:

What was the worst thing in your life this year?  Name, notice, pray, shout it aloud.

What was your response and reaction while living through that worst moment?  How do you view that event or experience today?

Here you are with the truth of the terrible thing, still breathing, still striving or struggling, and surviving.  What does that reality provoke in you?

What if resurrection isn’t just a restoration of the past (remember Jesus says to Mary do not cling to me) or a recitation of breath, but resurrection can feel like something new?  And resurrection always bears the wounds of yesterday into the newness of what might be. 

May your life hold the beautiful and terrible, the awe and awful, and hard and holy of these days.  Amen.