Lenten Words

This week we have dived deep into seven paradoxical...perhaps perplexing...and I pray playful words:

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

A quick poem that found its way through this list of words to offer itself to me:

Through the questions of life,
I can start to see weakness as strength...
Moments I bumble and stumble as the path to engage
New thoughts...
New dreams...
new prayers
Previously left unexplored because I was told those roads were closed.
As I wander and wonder, I start to see some strengths as weakness.
Clinging to certainty, when only mystery will do.
Might makes right, as the least helpful/hopeful way.
And through the chaos of random thoughts...peace comes for a short visit.
And through the chaos of random thoughts...hope sits for a spell in my soul.
And while life is unfair, and I am called to do what I can,
I also sense the beauty a well asked question can evoke and provoke...
And even invoke the holy here and now.

I invite you to keep playing with these words...and we will add another seven to sit in your mind, heart, and soul for the coming week:

13.  Grace
14.  Faith
15.  Crawl
16.  Walk
17.  Run
18.  Purple
19.  Party

What is the first word that leaps off the screen into your soul?
What word didn't even really register when your scanned the seven?
Any initial connections you sense/see?
And contradictions?

Can you use the words in a sentence like...

When I learned to crawl, I didn't realize I would one day walk and then run.  But now that I run, I wonder if I could recapture the ability to crawl?  Inch across the ground where the purple flowers look different face-to-face than from above?  Where the smell of fresh mowed grass might be the fragrance of grace.  Where my perspective is turned upside down, which is always what faith invites. This party with the earth, so close to creation from another perspective, found only when I tried crawling again.  Perhaps that is always the invitation of Lent.

Okay...now your turn.

And may there be more than a trace of God's grace in this prayerful moment of playing with Lenten words.

Blessings ~~