The hardest spiritual work in the world is to love the
neighbor as the self – to encounter another human being not as someone you can
use, change, fix, help, save, enroll, convince or control, but simply as
someone who can spring you from the prison of yourself, if you will allow it. Rev. Barbara
Brown Taylor
During the season of Lent, I want us to lean in and
listen to the wisdom of preachers who continue to inspire, inform, challenge,
and change me. This week, we will
meditate and ruminate and let the wisdom of Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor sing to our
souls. Barbara Brown Taylor is an
Episcopal priest who served congregations in GA until she was called to join
the faculty of Piedmont College (a UCC-founded college). Over the course of her teaching, she has
written numerous books, spoken at hundreds of conferences, but her favorite gig
(according to her website) is being a full-time caretaker of a farm in the
foothills of the Appalachians, where she lives with her husband, Ed, and many
animals.
Each day, when I offer a quote from Rev. Taylor, I
invite you to engage in sacred reading.
Take a deep breath with me and slowly exhale.
First, read the quote above, and notice/name your
response. Let it tickle your
imagination, let it roam around your heart, let the syllables of the sentences
stumble around your soul. Pay attention
to your response to the quote. Does the
quote make you smile or feel like sandpaper to your soul? Does the quote evoke or provoke a passionate
reaction, or taste like bland bread without any salt? Sit with the quote over a cup of tea/coffee
for a few minutes.
Second, re-read the quote, this time letting the intent
of the words intersect your life. For
example, with the quote above, think about the other featherless bipeds you
interacted with last week. Did you try
to use, change, fix, help, save, convince, or control? I know I did.
How might someone that I meet today free me from the prison of
myself? What does that look like? Pro tip: You may want to imagine a friend
freeing you from the prison of yourself first, because immediately jumping to
that person who makes your blood boil.
Just a thought.
Third, re-read the quote, and sit silently
with the wisdom without trying to wrestle a meaning or a blessing. As Rabbi Heschel once said, “Words create
worlds.” Enter the world of this quote
with a curiosity and an openness that shape you.
Finally, consider how the world of these words could
inform and inspire your living today and this week? Try to set a practice to embrace and embody
these words at a specific time and place today.
May the wisdom of fellow travelers on the road of faith
give us strength during this season of Lent and during these wilderness-wander
wayless way days. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment