The Pastor’s Pen – February 2010
March 1st, 2010An Invitation to a Holy Lent
It’s February! Ever since 1994 I have been unable to shake the memory of going out into that extraordinarily cold winter morning of February 18. It was snowing, the wind was blowing and the temperature was a brisk 48° below zero not counting wind chill. My three day sabbatical among the community of Benedictines at Blue Cloud Abbey came as a much needed respite from my internship parish was nearing its end. Many have asked what I could have done so terribly wrong or who I had gotten so angry at me as to warrant such a remote assignment as northeast South Dakota. Actually, though, isolated as it may sound or seem, there are things for which I have come to be genuinely grateful. As I reflect on that deeply meaningful year, there are experiences I had then which nothing the years since have offered to compare. The sense of wonder I felt at the magnificent sight of lambs being birthed in the barn on Vern Schultz’ farm and the agonizing grief and guilt I read on his face when one of them failed to live to its second day. I also gained a new appreciation for coffee as the third Lutheran sacrament, consecrated twice daily by the Britton “Retired and Simply-Tired” coffee club. I recall fondly polishing my Messiah complex up there as I took morning “walks on the water” on those cool winter mornings. And I am grateful for the joy of operating such marvelous machinery such as snow-throwers to clear the sidewalks and driveway. I was recalling those wintery scenes the other night as I watched the movie “Ice Castles.” It is one of Nicole’s favorite films. We played the title cut to the film’s soundtrack, “Looking through the Eyes of Love” at our wedding reception. Lexy’s Dad, Marcus, plowed back the snow from the ice-covered lake there on their Waverly Iowa farm so that she could practice her gift for figure skating.
Looking at that plowed snow scraped from the surface of the lake made me think of how seldom we intentionally delve beneath the surface of our veneer to explore who we really are. The theologian, author and teacher, Marva Dawn, who lives in Vancouver penned a cherished article remains in my “inbox” which is actually the entire top surface of my cluttered desk. In the article titled, “How does contemporary culture yearn for God?” Dawn discusses many of the modern sedatives we use to repress our innate longing for God – that restlessness Augustine sensed is common to humanity until it finds its rest in God. Some of them include the idolatry of ease – the illusion that we can achieve absolute comfort and thus escape any and all suffering. Then she talks about material and experiential consumerism. Granted our propensity for consumption has been squelched by the economy. Still we remain a people who will “acquire a glittery object to keep for a year” even though that shiny thing may “end up on a poisonous trash pile in Guatemala to be picked apart by sick children to be traded for food.”[i] Then there is the overload of context-less information that overwhelms us precisely because there is very little most of us can do about it except choose a side, join the blog and offer our own commentary. We move faster and know more yet are usually unable to do much about it.
The season of Lent is an invitation to the holy paradox of slowing down in order to see more, feel more, live more deeply, and become more aware of the unceasing presence of God. Our community will enter its practice of this holy time with two days of what may appear as premature “spring cleaning.” Shrove Tuesday (February 16th) is a day for cleaning of the fat-laden foodstuffs which often coax us to repress our longing for God. Fasting or some lean semblance thereof is a healthy Lenten discipline. The Celtic Appalachian band that calls themselves, “KELLEE” will be with us on Tuesday to enhance the festive part of our cleaning by helping us to dance the jig and properly plant the exclamation point before Ash Wednesday arrives the next day.
Allow me to share one additional thought, shared with me in a book of reflections entitled, “Memories of Grace.” The author writes,
“Wouldn’t it be a wondrous thing of we could experience everything as grace, believe that there is nothing that is not of God, accept every day as an invitation to leave the shelter of our own minds and see, touch and rejoice in divine life?”[ii]
The Lord be with you.
Pastor Alan
[i] Guthrie, Suzanne. The Holy Ordinary printed in Christian Century, Vol 127, No 1.
[ii] Behrens, James Stephen. Memories of Grace. Chicago: ACTA Publications, 2001. p 42.