Lent 2024: week one

(This is a follow-up to the first Lenten brushstroke. Each week will be another suggestion based on the opening image.)

For what do you grieve?

The question, no doubt, conjures up a list of names unique to each of us, but laced with a similar pain. Regardless of time, we carry that list with us every day and, like the opening Lenten image of the clogged stream, our grief often hinders God’s flow within us. This is a season to look at those names, see the faces, hear the voices, and remember specific moments.  Taking time to do this is to lift branches and clear away leaves from our internal stream.

But there are also other reasons for grief which are equally lasting and harmful. The loss of one’s good health, vibrant marriage, parent’s love/attention, or secure job are some of the other reasons we grieve. So, too, is an empty house with grown-up children gone. A lost friendship or sterling reputation can also cause us to grieve. The reasons are endless, and the grief is real. Few take the time to do the work of resolving it.

·      For me, just naming every reason I have to grieve is a start. (Making an uncensored list is helpful).

·      Taking time to feel the hurt and stop ignoring it is the next step. (I know we are taught to avoid pain, but this can be fruitful soul work if you have the courage.)

·      Exploring what happened (and my role in it, if I have one) is an additional step that will bring a sense of closure so few of us experience.

·      Once I have done all of this, I place whatever it is on the altar within me, the one where I place things too hard to handle and ask God for help.

Think of this as the hard, messy work of clearing the stream. It’s not the only work we need to do, but it’s a significant start.

Lent 2024

It wasn’t how I remembered it. The stream, one of my favorites, was a place I remembered with glistening water and rocks causing it to dance its way through life. I often closed my eyes wherever I happened to be and tried to picture the stream. It made me feel like I was sitting on its bank, looking, listening, and tasting the stream I loved.

But when I returned once, it was nothing like what I had imagined. The trees and weeds had grown all along its banks. Storms had caused trees, branches, and leaves to fall and clog the stream’s flow. Now there was little sound and the brackish pools were cloudy.

Sadness and disillusionment replaced the excitement I had been feeling while heading back to this favorite spot. “But the stream you remember, the stream you came to see, is still here,” I said to myself, so I began to pull the weeds and lift the branches. It took more work than I intended, but seeing the stream begin to move again kept me working. Soon, the familiar sound of water dancing around the rocks made me look for other branches and sticks to remove.

I’ve always had a thing for streams. The beauty never ceases to inspire me, the sound never gets old. They’re so full of life, I once explained to my mother, who smiled and nodded to let me know she understood. That day, I realized a stream, just like our lives, need attention. They, too, can be glistening and as lively as a spontaneous dance, but storms come, so do trees, branches, and all kinds of debris. If left unattended, things get caught on the rocks and the water’s flow slows to a crawl. Cloudy pools replace clear rapids and weeds shroud the stream from the world.

Thank God, there’s a season like Lent when we’re invited back to the stream to do the much needed work. It’s sometimes hard, disheartening work, but when the water begins to flow again and the sun reflects of the clearing water, it is well worth.

May we all return to the stream and do the work.

Wind and Waves

“Don’t let the choppy water scare you,” said the skipper, “it just means there’s wind.” I knew he was right, but still something within me wanted the wind without the waves. It was a dramatic day on the bay, one in which we got soaked and almost flipped, but it was also exhilarating.

This memory resurfaced recently after a particularly troublesome day. I found myself on the shore of a potential creative project and saw countless waves bobbing up and down and creating an occasional whitecap. When I focused on the waves, I recoiled, but when I remembered the waves were the result of wind I walked toward the boat.

In biblical times, people felt God made himself known through wind. The fancy word in Hebrew is ruach, which means mighty wind. They felt God came and surrounded us like a breeze, and after Pentecost the early church felt God came and blew through our lives like a Holy Spirit daily.

The problem is, with wind comes waves.

Just ask the artist that feels inspired to write a memoir, an alcoholic who feels led to put down the drink, a child who sets sail into a life independent of her overbearing parents, a woman who leaves her unhealthy marriage, or man who changes his safe career of 18 years. In each case, there’s a mighty wind promising a new destination, even if it lies beyond the horizon. As exciting as such a journey might seem from the shore, the wind that carries also creates waves. We will likely get soaked and almost flip. No wonder so few set sail.

If we focus on the waves, we’ll either stay on shore or search for harbors where the wind doesn’t blow. (Such harbors come in all shapes and sizes, and, if we’re honest, we know which ones we return to regularly) But if we celebrate the wind, because we know its source and its purpose, we can learn to open our sails and allow it to carry us across the water to the place God always wanted for us.