Category Archives: lent

Lent faith booking

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Today is the start of Lent.

If you want a good concise place to find out about Lent, then Maggi wrote excellently here a few years ago, and it is where I started to focus in on the tradition and season being all about retuning to faithfulness in Christ, rather than giving up stuff like chocolate of alcohol … although they are not necessarily bad things to take the opportunity to have 40 days away from.

Today will also be the first time I attend an Ash Wednesday service. It’s no surprise that this is celebrated at the cathedral – details here for the service at 8.00pm. Why not come along – we could go out for a pint after … that’s if you have not given up alcohol for Lent! The service looks interesting and I like the look of some of the liturgy which is both poetic and rich in imagery. People will be ‘ashed’ with ash produced by burning last years palm crosses which members of the congregation have been returning. The significance of the ash is a sign of penitence and to remind us that we are ‘created from dust and to dust we will return’. I’m quite looking forward to starting this years Lent journey with what will be a new experience for me.

This Lent I am attempting to reflect during this season in a different way. I have cheekily chosen to blatantly plagiarise and adapt for my own style the ‘faith Book‘ idea of Nik’s. I am going to attempt through a variety of ways in this book my thoughts as I journey through Lent. I may share some stuff here, possibly in short one liner thoughts, or it may go quiet here for periods now and again. Actually, I guess it may go quiet for all of Lent … I don’t really know!

However you decide to observe Lent – may you be blessed as you think on God over these next 40 (plus Sundays) days.

Moot Lent

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I love this picture and the publicity that is produced by Moot.
These events through Lent are both imaginative and will challenge spiritually.
I’m glad to be able to get to some of these events and point to them here in case you don’t know about this.

the morning of questions

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Confusion?
Anger?
Depression?
Fear?
Cheated?

How did the disciples feel on the Saturday?

We know the end (or is it the beginning) of the story and what happens on Easter Sunday. But, the disciples did not.
Jesus was dead.
The Messiah in the tomb.
The King slain by the Romans.

How did they wake that morning?
‘If only?’
‘Why?’
‘Was he wrong?’
‘Was I wrong?’

A day of emptiness
exhaustion
disbelief
disillusionment

a dark dark day
staring into nothingness
wishing
thinking
willing
‘If only …’

And was the world without God
while he was in hell?
was creation on timer
until his return?
was heaven in silence
with no one to praise?
did the angels watch in fear
fading hope for his return?

Saturday
Jesus entombed in darkness
disciples bound in their gloom
humanity unconscious in the shadows
creation screaming out from the night

what have you done to my Lord?

Lent Dignity

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I got home tense and snappy today.
I don’t want to say where I spent the day, but it was with a national organisation which is normally excellent in the way it works.
Today I found myself frustrated with starting late, finishing 90 minutes early, poor presentations and people not showing.
At one point I swear I came close to losing the will to live!

Lunch was good as was the networking opportunity over lunch where I met 3 new people.
I feel like I have wasted a large part of the day and that frustrates me as I can think of the many things I could have got done at home in the office if I had spent the 8 hours here rather than travel into London.
So tonight this photo from Getty Images resonates!

What can I take away from this?
It reinforces what I have been thinking about over Lent.
It reinforces the need to treat all with respect and dignity and to treat all tasks, even the really boring and mundane, as part of my worship to God.
It is easy to see people as just part of the job, or even a hindrance to the job!
To treat with dignity and look for God within each individual human ‘image of God’ should protect us from doing this.

Laze with God

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Giles Fraser is one of the first columns I turn to in the Church Times and this week he writes very simply on Lent.

We are too often far too purpose driven and concerned about what, and how many, outcomes are being achieved through our general busy-ness. I know this is often the case for me as I do not feel I have achieved anything unless I have ticked off at least 5 tasks before my coffee break at 10!

Lent is a time, says Fraser, when we could give up this purpose driven lifestyle with its obsession with targets and do things to reflect, or find ‘space’ without asking what we can achieve from the time.

‘Lent – a time to laze with God’ – I like that idea!

I wonder…

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On Friday, before joining the Hope 08 meeting in London I made the time to go to the Hogarth exhibition at Tate Britain. It’s fantastic and worth the visit – but be prepared to wait 6 deep away from paintings before you can get a good view!

I was struck by this painting of Moses being handed over to Pharaoh’s daughter as outlined in Exodus 2:10. Hogarth seems to have captured the atmosphere amazingly. The tears of the natural mother and the excitement and expectation of Pharaoh’s daughter leapt out of the piece with a clean and innocent contrast of mothers emotions.

I was captivated, however, by the look and stance of the little boy Moses. Not wanting to leave his mum, but bravely stepping towards the held out hand of his new foster mum while clutching tightly onto the robe of his tearful mother, not wanting to let go, but knowing that he has to. Knowing, in fact, that his survival depends on this simple, but incredibly brave, small step.

And than I wondered as I tend to do at such times…

Did Jesus feel like this when he left his fathers side to join us on earth?
Did he take those brave steps tearfully while clutching the cloak of God, worried about leaving, but knowing he had to go?
Was Jesus scared in the same way Moses was scared?
As he stepped away from the presence of God, did God himself cry while Mary eagerly awaited his arrival in her arms?
A divine human contrast where loves causes tears and joy over this child?
Were those cries of the babe in the manger, cries of a saviour leaving his God?
Sent out from everything he had ever known, into the unknown of his creation?
I wonder…

when …?

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Rabbi Yoshua ben Levi came upon Elijahthe prophet while he was standing at the entrance of Rabbi Simeron be Tohai’s cave.
He asked Elijah,’When will the Messiah come?’
Elijah replied, ‘Go and ask him yourself.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Sitting at the gates of the city.’
‘How shall I know him?’
‘He is sitting among the poor covered with wounds. The others unbind all their wounds at the same time and bind them up again. But he unbinds one at a time and binds it up again, saying to himself,
‘Perhaps I shall be needed: if so I must always be ready so as not to delay for a moment.’

(from Tracate Sanhedrin as quoted in Nouwen’s The Wounded Healer)

seasons

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Todays lent thought from the Northumbria Community:
‘We are all very subject to seasons; yet these seasons are there to make us eventually seasonless. There is only one way you are ever going to learn to triumph over all seasons, and that is to go through each and every season … may times. When you can reckon the sound of abundant rain and the hot blowing of a dry spell exactly the same, then you will be nearing the land of maturity.

A New Day Dawns

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This is a powerful prayer written by Alison Browne, a brave young woman who died on June 1997, aged 21, from cystic fibrosis. This is one of the last poems she wrote. I am using this as a basis for my reflections today:

When I am strong I will fight,
And when I am weary of the fight
I will rest in you,
Knowing that you can carry me for a time.

In my fight I will draw strength from your love
For your love cannot be beaten –
When I am alone,
When I fear the icy touch of fear,
I will take it in my hand
And hold it out to you,
And in the heat of your love
It will melt away –

When my heart feels isolated,
When no one cam comfort me
And the crowd serves
Only to remind me of how alone I am,
I will look within myself where you wait
And I will remember to allow you to love me –

Then, when the joy is so strong
That I cannot take life in quickly enough,
I will remember to take a moment to sit with you
And appreciate the beauty you created –

And when the night comes,
I ask only that I be alive with peace and faith,
So that I may not fear
The new day that lies beyond.

1st day of Lent

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It will not have escaped you that today is the first day of Lent.
There are a number of Lent Blogs to keep an eye on, particularly here.
Lent is a time for simplicity, to rid yourself of stuff and try to focus more on God and the coming of Easter. It’s not a time of diets and de-toxing for our own gain advantage it has become for some, but a time to free us to worship in a simple and more pure way. This ties in well with my re-centreing.

On this first day of Lent I have been thinking about the desert and how Jesus went into the desert for 40 days. Often the desert is seen as a harsh place, but it can also be a place of rich discovery.

I remember when I was younger in my Qatar visiting days that I would walk with friends in the desert and it would not be unusual to discover things behind sand dunes, or under the sand,which were surprising and quite exciting discoveries. Other times, in our madness, we would run on the Hash through the desert and again be amazed at some of the things we saw.

Currently I am in a bit of a mental desert, which I am seeing as a positive thing which excites me. It’s not always fun here, and I certainly have not lost God or not hearing God – it just feels a little dry and laboured for much of the time.

I believe the desert is a place where we have to look to God, and that as we do we rediscover a little more of who we are and who we are created to be. In my Lenten desert I am hoping to rediscover more of my identity – to discover more of what is at the centre of me.