Choosing Wisely (Lent 2017)

It's that time of year again! (Whoo-hoo!)

It is time to choose a Lenten discipline. (Oh.)

May I suggest that you don't wait until Ash Wednesday (March 1) and decide in a hurry? Or decide now and binge on an activity to go cold turkey in a week.

Lent, the forty days of fasting, prayer, and penitence before Easter (not counting Sundays), is a season of slowing down, thinking deeply, praying, and spiritual pruning and growth. We are in the imitation of Christ's time in the wilderness, praying, fasting, and resisting temptation between his baptism and the noted beginning of his public ministry in some of the gospel accounts.

When pondering Lenten disciplines, here are some good questions to ask yourself.

1) What does God think about me? How do I know that?

2) What gets in the way of me understanding or perceiving God's love in my life?

3) What gets in the way of me understanding or perceiving God's love in the world?

4) What is a habit that disturbs me spiritually- in that it causes me to feel separated from God's presence?

5) What do I do regularly that breaks the positive fulfillment of one or more of the 10 commandments?

6) What have I done in the past year that still bothers me, even though I have tried to let go of it?

7) What is a spiritual discipline that I want to do, but I cannot seem to make time for or do in a way that gives some consolation or peace?

8) Where is a dead spot in my life that needs prayer and work in anticipation of resurrection?


This season is more than giving up chocolate or caffeine or even trying to pray every day. It is about literally taking time to examine your life and to weigh how  you treat yourself, those around you, and the world in comparison to how God desires you and them to be treated. Where do you see the need for tikkun olam- the repair of the world?

Take some time in the next week. I realize that time is a commodity and no one has as much as they want or need. Nevertheless, put your phone down when you're in the bathroom. Get a grease pencil or a dry erase marker for the shower or bathroom mirror. Put a post-it note on your steering wheel. Change your screen saver or homepage. Make new place mats with your kids- construction paper covered with contact paper. Put a sheet of butcher paper on the fridge. Set a daily alarm or timer.

There is time to think about this and to prayerfully open yourself to new thoughts and habits that God may be trying to introduce in your life in the season ahead. I am praying for you in your time of discovery- prayers for peace, renewal, strength, openness, courage, and trust.

Competition and Sanctification

I am starting a relationship with a new spiritual director (SD). I'm very excited.

In our first conversation, I mentioned some of the areas in which I think I need to work. Her direction is inspired by the Holy Spirit and rooted in the Enneagram. I mentioned my Enneagram type to her in this first chat and then discussed some of the things on which I want to reflect and dig deeper spiritually.

Important facts:

1. My Enneagram type is very competitive (3). That sense of competition can have an inward or outward focus.

2. I don't like to do things that I think I should OR that I enjoy if I am not as good at them as I think I should be.


So, I was talking to SD about my struggle with spiritual disciplines. She immediately commented, "It seems like you're very competitive- especially with yourself."

I replied, "Yes. If you ask me, though, I will tell you that I'm not competitive. I'm especially less competitive than you!"

We laughed, but I've reflected on that deeply in the past week.

I do compare myself to others, but I've learned to be gentle in those comparisons and to seriously reflect on my own achievements and location as a child of God. Yet, I still struggle with being further behind than I think I should be in a variety of areas.

In my mind, sanctification is God's embrace of us as we are and push/pull through the Spirit to bring us into a new fullness (read:better state) of being.

I struggle with sanctification. I've just realized that. I want to be further along than I am, so I paradoxically regress out of shame.

In that, I am refusing grace. I am scurrying on my little wheel and angry that I'm not in the next room. I wrestle with God's pace for me, because I [apparently] know myself better.



woof.


I'm going to need to sit with this for a while.