Lenten Words

This week...on another exciting episode of letting a few words each week of Lent simmer...sing...sit in our souls...we are holding gently on to this set of words:

27.  Uncertainty/Doubt
28.  Justice
29.  Kindness
30.  Humility
31.  Want
32.  Need
33.  Palm or Parade

As I looked over the list several quotes were stirred within me.

Paul Tillich who said, "Doubt is not the opposite of faith.  It is an element of faith."  Or Robert Browning who said, "I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists."  Or this amazing part of the end of Matthew's gospel.  The eleven disciples have been told by the women who went to the empty tomb that the risen Christ has scheduled a meeting on a mountain.  And Matthew...in the light of Easter... says, "Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted."  Do you hear how normalized doubt is here?  Like, "Oh yeah.  There was that time when the disciples stood in the presence of Jesus after seeing him die.  Some worshiped.  Some doubted.  Some when and got a sandwich."  Like all the responses are natural and normal part of what Easter faith looks like, sounds like, feels like.  Doubt is not the opposite, but an element of faith.   As we persist patiently and prayerfully on the pathway of a living relationship with God, each step we take is itself along side our doubt is part of faith.  What are some of the doubt that sit within you?  I have doubts about decisions I have made as well as decisions I need to make ~ or help the church make.  Parenting is a daily exercise in doubt because behind every child is a parent thinking s/he is messing it up.  And information alone will not necessarily help alleviate our doubts. After all...one day a study will say this food is good for you...only to find out an other study will show the opposite.  Some of what was in my science text books growing up is now been shown to be not the whole truth.  We continue to explore and expand and experience the world, doubt can awaken its cousin curiosity.  Doubt and curiosity together are playful...cheering each other on in amazing ways.  Doubt and curiosity together cause wonder to stir and swirl.  But...doubt has another cousin ~ cynicism.  Those two together can breed and breathe much brokenness.  When you ask what is going on in the world today, perhaps doubt and cynicism have been spending too much time together.  And it might help us all, to rekindle the relationship with curiosity.  As the poet Elizabeth Alexander once wrote..."Are we not of interest to each other?"

So may the beauty of doubt dance in your midst.  May we humbly acknowledge that sometimes doubt invites cynicism over for dinner too much in our lives.  May we find ways with the traces of grace in our lives to let doubt and curiosity find beautiful moments each day.

Blessings ~~