Lenten Words

You have had a few knows to play prayerfully with the following words:

6.   Question
7.   Weakness
8.   Strength
9.   Peace
10. Chaos
11.  Hope
12.  Unfair

Words not only create worlds...some times they create a space and place ~ which is why I love reading a good book.  In worship, it is not only the physical building in which we dwell, but also the liturgy (spoken prayers/sung music/being with others) that can create a cathedral to enter too.  Good worship invites us in to something/somewhere to dwell for awhile.  This is what makes Sunday morning so sacred.  We enter a space where words (spoken and sung) still reverberate and resonate from the walls around us...if only we listen.  We enter a space where the sacred has been sung by people we will never know...and yet we can still hear the faint echo of presence from the past.  But we don't only enter the physical door, we are invited to cross another threshold through the words that are spoken and sung that day.  Worship that is meaningful and makes a difference takes us on a journey.  Sometimes...when I leave worship that has stirred my heart...it is because the journey was coherent and creative.  Other times...I feel like the journey was chaotic...we took too many exit ramps or the path felt circuitous ~~ like from the Family Circus comic strip where the mother would ask the child to go two doors down to borrow some sugar from a neighbor and the child would go in the opposite direction and all over town before returning one hour later...having forgotten the sugar. 

When words sit closely snuggled together, they start a sort of divine dance.  Some words just make better dancing partners...sometimes the words step on each other's toes...sometimes the words simply want to sit silently on the sidelines unsure if they really know the right moves to be out on the dance floor.  What I notice about the above list of words is the playful paradox woven in the list.  Weakness and strength...peace and chaos...hope and unfairness within life.  All that rings true within my life this past week. 

The moments of weakness when I said something I instantly regretted or just wondered if I was doing the right thing.
The moments of laughter and love filling me to overflowing with strength.
The moments of peacefully sitting or holding someone's hand in the hospital while the chaos of machines help the person to breath or provided needed medicine - noticed again how two seemingly contradictory words could sit side-by-side in the same space.
The moments of hope that come crashing down to unfairness especially when scanning the morning headlines.

What other ways are these words being embodied and embraced in your life?  How are you encountering these words in flesh/bone/breath?  How might these words create space/place for you in these Lenten days?

May there continue to be a thread/trace of God's grace in your life.

Blessings ~~