Room For All in Lent

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God, Inspirational, Jesus, Lent, religion

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Today begins the annual time of penance and preparation for the glory of Easter. Yet, even our atheistic friends can benefit from the challenges posed by the season of Lent.

As children, we all probably recall friends who observed the time. One heard, “what are you giving up for Lent?” I recall many a friend of mine in childhood who blanched suddenly, eyes growing big as saucers. “What’s wrong?” we would ask. And there would be a mumbled “I gave up french fries for Lent” as the offending food slid down the throat unwillingly.

While we still do “give up” things, some of them even food items, we also “give up” old ways that have proven untenable, harmful, or hurtful. We often “add” practices that are designed to bring us in a  more constant “present moment” with the divine.

It is a poor Christian who arrives at Lent, and then decides what practices will be adhered to during the 40 days. It requires a certain amount of thought and prayer. We spend the time in the last weeks and days before Lent in preparing. We contemplate, we uncover, we decide what needs fixing, where we have failed, how we can correct wrongs done.

But even if we give no thought until today, we can still do this. I don’t think God is concerned if we only get in 39 days or 38. It’s the sincerity that counts.

For those who are not in faith, why, Lent provides that same incentive to better ourselves, to end bad habits, to acquire new ones. Indeed it’s ever so much better than New Year’s resolutions. They mostly fail, because the great maw of “forever” brings us to a halt almost before we begin. Observing Lent only requires a commitment to stick with it for 40 days, (more actually since weekends aren’t counted), and that is doable.

Who among us is perfect? Who can’t stand a bit of tweaking around the edges? Who doesn’t want to repair a broken friendship or family relationship? Who doesn’t want to start a new creative endeavor, read more, or engage in more hands-on volunteer work? Now’s the time to make that commitment to stick with it for a few weeks.

Time for a new habit to become a tried and true one. Time to evaluate and institute a change here or there. Time to uncover something more deeply seeded in one’s psyche.

For the faithful, Lent is a time to mourn our failings and offer small penances to God (really to ourselves), attaching consequences to our wrongs. It is our opportunity to grow close to our Lord in his suffering as He chose to show his followers the depths of his belief in the path that  he shows us is  true communion with our Creator. It is our time to work at our sainthood, distant and unlikely as it may well be.

It is odd that we remember the old question: “What are you giving up for Lent?” for in Matthew, Jesus told his disciples the exact opposite. Don’t let the left hand know what the right is doing. Don’t pray in public, nor lament over your fasting. Don’t make a public display of your “righteousness”. (Matt 6: 1-6)

There is no righteousness in shouting to the world all you are doing in Lent. If you are sincere, then keeping those things between you and God are all that is necessary. If your chosen practices are truly meant to improve you, then, no one need be aware.

Take a moment and think whether you might benefit from some changing act or practice during the next few weeks, safely aware that it need not last forever, but just might, if you don’t impose a forever commitment. You might be surprised at the wonders that come your way.

Blessings my dear friends.

 

Related Articles

• How the Season of Lent Can Motivate You (fitsugar.com)
• What is Lent?. (greatriversofhope.wordpress.com)
• Living Lent: a season of life (johnpmcginty.wordpress.com)
• This Lent, clear the debris and go to confession (archden.org)
• Lent 2011! (culturalawakening.wordpress.com)

Road Signs

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church, faith, God, Jesus, Lent, ministry, spiritual path, spirituality

Psalm 143: 8 says:

Let me hear of your loving-kindness in the morning, for I put my trust in you;

Show me the road that I must walk, for I lift up my soul to you.

I read this one yesterday, and it has stayed with me since. It has brought to my attention a nagging, unvoiced concern that has been fomenting within me for some weeks.

For me, this Lenten season has been bittersweet in many ways. It is not at all what I expected, yet, perhaps it has been exactly what it should be–a time of intense thought and prayer, deep meditation on things I perhaps did not expect.

As the harsh winter bore on, and I was forced to cancel more and more of my church ministry activities, a certain almost imperceptible calm set in–indeed a near happiness. I puzzled over this, as you might expect, and dismissed it as some temporary euphoria of “acceptance” of how things were, rather than what I wished.

Yet, I could not get away from the nagging feeling that I was somehow relieved. I have pushed back those feelings for some weeks now, dismissing them as I said, as mere attempts to live with reality. But there was more to it than that.

I have not the doubt that is normal to believers–the doubts which are both real and necessary about faith itself. In fact, doubting is well established in the bible as normal and part of the journey. I’m not feeling that, at this time and place.

What I am doubting are my choices to involve myself in so many ministries at my church. I’ve not been able to fulfill my responsibilities well during this winter season, but that is but a symptom I suspect. What continues to irritate is the feeling that I have in some real manner welcomed the excuse. Not at all consciously, but subconsciously, and now, it is bubbling upward into the day.

I am constructed thusly it seems. After discussing this whole matter with the Contrarian, I was at pains to agree, that I am likely to rush into things full bore as it were, only to find myself enmeshed in more than I can chew, to mix a metaphor or two. My usual response is to simple “disappear” back into the oblivion of anonymity.

I suggested to him, “Sometimes I think, perhaps I should just go to St. Pius’s and backbench there.” The Contrarian’s eyes grew wide. “You would consider going to the Catholic church again?” “No, not in a formal sense,” I replied, “it just represents the feeling I have that I am not up to all this busyness right now.”

“Perhaps that’s what you should discuss with your priest then, instead of just walking away.” And in fact, that is probably as close to being correct as I can imagine. It is the right thing to do. “Look,” he pondered, “you are just in a place in your journey where you aren’t able to give, just receive. There is nothing wrong with that is there?” “No,” I reflectively answered.

Was this my answer? The one I have been praying for most seriously? Gone from a general unease to a focusing in on the issue of which path–was Christ speaking to me through my beloved? I don’t know the answer yet, and am reticent to accept the first answer that seems to my liking.

What I discover, is that the journey is fraught with obstacles. Some of them are obvious–the dark night of the soul, that coldness that comes when we question whether there is a God and if he/she is listening. There is the obstacle of time and place, and the fact that sometimes faith and church don’t coincide, nor does  a faith tradition meet the needs of the heart and soul. 

Now I discover more obstacles. Is my crisis one of pure laziness, selfish desire to not be burdened with a calendar of responsibilities? Or is it simply that God and I need to walk alone at this time, deepening our bond? I met a nun once, and worked with her for a couple of weeks in New Mexico.  A harder working woman I never met. Yet I wondered when she got the time to spend with God, quietly and not while exhausted.

No doubt the same could be said of Mother Theresa and countless others who devote every waking moment to the service of those in need. I am so woefully inadequate to all this. My rather paltry efforts so far are laughable by comparison, yet I am feeling pinched in my spiritual life.

But perhaps I’m supposed to be. Perhaps comfort is a sign that I am taking an easy way. Jesus most certainly did not take an easy way. I can’t imagine him getting up and saying, “heck boys, lets go swimming today and play some soccer, I’m not into all this healing and preaching today.”

Talk about putting on the mind of Christ!  Like John, I am unfit to tie his sandals. And so, I ponder further. Think of me when you pray today, for I am sorely in need of guidance. Saying it straight out seems a start, but truly I lament:  Show me the road that I must walk.

Never Look A Grace Horse in the Mouth

Tags

depression, God, grace, hope, Lent, religion

As many of you know, its been a rough winter here in the meadow. But heck, it has been rough across the land. My complaints have been more to the personal meadow issues than the mere cataloging of inches of snow, and days below freezing or without sun.

I’ve tread water a good deal of the time, putting one foot in front of the other as it were, and not much more. I’ve been sustained in part by the good wishes and commiserating thoughts of so many of you.

It is not until, as my good friend Ruth, over at Visions and Revisions, pointed out, she felt the first bubblings of “hope” returning, that I was able to truly “see” what was going on in my life. I said at the time, that I had not yet had that feeling, but I can relate, that today, I have.

Yesterday, a friend said in words to this effect: “How do I answer my non-believing friends that my faith has logic and sense to it?” One of our clergy replied, “Somethings are not of the mind, but are truth as seen from the heart.” And what follows surely is understandable by the believer and will be dismissed by those who do not believe as so much “wishful” thinking or some such dismissive remark.

For, today, I stand fully aware of the special graces given me during this Lenten period. Graces that have allowed me to persevere in the face of sometimes onerous calamities. As is often the case, grace reveals itself in the people we come in contact with. It certainly expressed that way for me.

Jan at Yearning for God, sent me a wonderful Lenten practice that I’ve been doing on being sensitive to our “carbon footprint”  and being mindful of our consumerism. Ellen, a truly gifted and dedicated friend from church, pointed me in the direction of a site called “Journey to the Cross, which has been a daily source of inspiration. It speaks to me so clearly some days, saying just what I most need to hear. Tim, from Straight-Friendly has been unfailingly supportive and offerer of gems of wisdom that bespeak a very very old soul indeed.

It is in one sense deeply unfair to single out only these four, for indeed there are many, almost too numerous to mention who have been there at the exact time I needed them to be, with words of wisdom, offerings of help, or simple empathetic understanding.

It all broke open for me yesterday, when at last I was able to return to church. To gather for education hour and enjoy and benefit from the amazing gifts of so many was inspiring. To talk about and meditate on “the NOW” with such rich gifts as the members of my parish is grace indeed. To worship together in love and commitment, with sincerity and joy, is inspiring indeed. I came away refreshed, renewed and full of, yes indeed, hope.

Hope bubbled up once more, just as Ruth describes it in her posting of a couple of days ago. Urged forth by the warm welcome I received by so many, and the ease with which I slipped back into familiar but meaningful patterns of prayer and worship, hope returned in the bright sun of a Sunday afternoon.

It was truly not that things were so bad, for truly they were not. Most of the crises I suffered were over fairly soon, within hours some times, within a day or so on others. But the cabin fever mentality is wearing. Those who know depression know what I mean. You awaken with the sigh of another day doing the same old same old, and it seems almost not worth the effort of getting up. The rut of sameness looms large. Just getting out among others helps, changes one’s perspective.

I felt, as I left the church building, the gurgling of a spring within my chest. The birds twittered, my step was more lively. I smiled at strangers, and shared a laugh at the design of shopping carts. I chatted with the young man checking my groceries. I fell back in love with the world again.

I saw, finally the deep grace God has offered me, in the people and places I was able to access. I was reminded of the deep blessing of Carolyn and Karen and Barbara and so many others who checked in with me, and offered words of comfort. God works that way a lot. Through the willingly open person who offers himself as conduit for Grace.

We are urged always to seek to put on the mind of Christ. I am blessed, for I have seen that mind mirrored to me again and again during these past weeks. I didn’t always see it at the time, but I do now. I see the fine tapestry of interwoven lives that encompass me and uphold me. I am grateful. I am blessed. I thank all of you, named and unnamed.

Turn Inward to Follow Outward

Tags

Ash Wedneday, Lent, religion

Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.

The root of the word “human” comes from the word humus or soil.

Humus is also the root for the word humility.

To be humble is not to be self depreciating, but to be grounded in our relationship with God and the earth. [from: www.simpleliving.org and with thanks to Jan from Yearning for God who sent me this link.]

“. . .let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, . . .” [Heb. 12:1]

Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.” [Heb. 12:12-13]

Read about Lent being not a time of denial but of transformation at God Politics today.

Read T.S. Eliot’s poem, Ash Wednesday, here.

Peace

Reflecting Reflections Reflectively

Tags

Ash Wednesday, boredom, empathy, Evan Bayh, God, Jesus, Lent, love, penance

I have no clue what “bored out of my skull” means. It makes no sense, which I think is common to a lot of silly phrases we throw about haphazardly. In any case, I am not bored either in or out of mine, but I’m reflecting.

I live in a paradox. But don’t we all. Mine is that I seem to find a certain calmness in organizing my life into rituals. I get up at the same time, go through the same motions of making bed, cleaning up kitchen, making coffee, praying, cooking, studying. Dinner is at the same time, cleanup, computer time, news, shower, reading and meditation, TV. 

I find a certain comfort in “accomplishing” the day. But, then I can get “bored” with the sameness, the repetitive slogging through of innumerable bed makings and all the rest. I have been heard to say, “I’m just bored with taking a shower because it’s six o’clock.”

There is a certain grouchy grumbling going on here. That probably is why I’m unburdening myself. Yet, in the great continuum of life, I’m doing better than even at the moment. I’m making it. I’m surviving the trauma of a winter that refuses to let go. I’m assessing where I am and what I am doing. I’m pondering.

Reading blogs the last few days have lightened my mood. Gracious, but some of you are having much worse troubles than I am. That makes me feel better, and THAT thought makes me feel worse. If you get my drift. We all, to a degree can feel better when finding others who are doing so much worse.

Winter has sucked, but frankly, not as badly as some places in the US of A. Our woes have been tied to lots of other mishaps and unexpected disasters. Unexpected? Since they turn up with regularity, there is little unexpected except perhaps the EXACT form this one will take. I weep, and pray with certainty for the improvement of conditions for many, known and unknown. I know God did not cause it, and I know he won’t “fix” it, except through the open-hearted response of those who have relationship with Him.

It’s not a good thing to arrive at Ash Wednesday, unprepared. We are to be thinking during the run up to the most solemn of days, of what kind of penance we should be doing during the Lenten period. What are we going to “give up?” Soda or ice cream? Wasting time on FB? Playing online poker? Should we add something? More devotions? More volunteering? More something. More time thinking about the sacrifice of Jesus, the perfect and total obedience–the showing of us poor oh too human beings how to love completely and selflessly.

It all makes one feel inadequate of course. I cannot approach the Christ. I fail sometimes before the words of repentance are even out of my mouth, my tongue still curling over the last syllable. Jesus, of course understands, and forgives, and upholds, and encourages. Sometimes I listen, sometimes I turn my back. It depends–how raw is the pain? How much do I need to wallow in self pity if only for a few hours? Better people than me, far better, do better.

I look out the window and I see the sea of white that seems ever present. In fact, it comes close to being hard to remember when it was not like this. I decide my “give ups” and my “add ons” for the upcoming weeks. I shall try to do these practices mindfully and with great humility at my poor attempts. But I will be kind to myself too, for I know deeply that God offers such amazing grace each moment.

Somehow the distant clang of politics, and sports, and all that jazz, (are you eating up the lovely metaphors here?) resounds in quiet. Evan Bayh calls it quits and leaves the party in the lurch. A suspicious call (at least to me) at the pairs figure skating, Sarah sarahing, Dick “the Dick” Cheney, cheneying. . .  it all fades into a fair buzz, not subject to identification.

It is time to retreat into a mysterious world of silence, contemplating a broken world from afar. Yes we are in the world but not OF it as they say. At moments like this I remove myself from it. I dispassionately see it tattered and raw, from too much fighting, too little understanding and love seemingly relegated to personal relationships. No “fellow man” need apply.

This is the business of Lent. It is prospective examined. It is readjusting the continuum and making a nest for oneself there, somewhere between the extremes, somewhere safer than those places inhabited by Haitians and Iraqis, Afghans,  Iranians, and others who struggle with famine, war, and lack of freedom.

 It is time to pull up one’s boots and trudge on, for my life is so much easier than millions of others. Think of that. I am not walking miles for fresh water, nor standing in long lines for subsistence food rations. I am not making home in a tent, nor standing in more lines for showers and toilets. I am not worried that bombs will land upon me. I am not concerned with being incarcerated for thinking out loud.

Where I started was the thought that this winter was penance enough for Lent. But see? It certainly is not. Empathy is perhaps my theme this Lent. How to find it, grow it, and use it for the benefit of my brothers and sisters around the globe. I wish you all a blessed Lent, as we approach this fateful period. Give thanks for your own well being, rejoice in that, but do, I beg you, remember that you cannot escape responsibility. Am I my brother’s keeper Cain asked? Yes, yes you are and I am, all of us, on board this fragile planet held in God’s hand.

Run in the Open Fields

Tags

contemplative prayer, fundamentalism, God, Lent

I’ve been having an interesting conversation with a woman on a forum. It started out innocent enough as it were. “What are you doing for Lent?” It was posted on a forum section for non-Catholics. This section is presumably for non-Roman Catholics and for Catholics alike to explore the differences in their various faith traditions and also  hopefully where they are in line.

Reading a bit more of the original post, we got a bit different sense. She claimed that she understood that most Protestants don’t observe the time and wondered if we had any idea what it was about.

Many of us responded giving our personal Lenten observance. More than one of us inquired as to her placement of the thread in the Non-Catholic forum given her belief that Protestants by and large didn’t observe Lent. In other words, some of us smelled a rat.

She replied to these remarks by saying that she knew eight Protestants and they didn’t observe. She never explained why then she chose to place the thread on that particular subforum.

In any case, she was clear, Lent was invented by the Roman Catholic church, the only church, by the way that was started by Jesus Christ himself.

No amount of logic will dissuade her of this, and that is as one would expect. But no amount of logic will dissuade of her of the notion that that is a conclusion she has come to, and other people faced with the same information have come to quite different conclusions. In her mind, there is no difference.

As she told me, “you are ignorant of Church history. ” I replied that, on balance I probably knew more than the average person, though I certainly was no expert. Moreover, I inquired, “how do you come to that conclusion when you know exactly zero about me or my education?” “Oh,” she answered, “that is easy. If you knew Church history, you would know that I am right.”

More than one person scratched their heads in disbelief at this statement, but she insisted, that no matter what, the Roman Catholic church was first. No mind that penance and ashes and sackcloth had been a part of the Jewish religious life for centuries before. No, that mattered not. Jesus presented Lent to the Catholic Church through the Holy Spirit.

We, the great non-Roman world, are just copiers, as we have copied and use their creeds, their words of consecration in our useless Eucharist, and their bible.  We are wannabe Catholics who aren’t strong enough for the discipline required, so we pretend to be Catholics with our watered down versions.

One of course realizes that discussion is impossible. The mind is too closed tight. There is something too threatening in the idea that God may uphold his people in all the mosaic of Christian thought and practice. Apparently God does not in fact read the heart, but instead studies the liturgical rules and practices as evidence of true faithfulness.

I have come to see this as amusing in some sense, and sad in another. I don’t let it bother me. I was reminded of it this morning in reading a lovely passage from a book recommended by Jan at Yearning for God.

The book is entitled, Into the Silent Land, by Martin Laird, and I urge you to pick it up. I confess that I have only reached chapter 2, but I can tell you it is a wonderful book about contemplative prayer and I look forward through it to improve mine. It is one of my Lenten disciplines, to read and incorporate this book.

In it, Mr. Laird relates the following story:

When overwhelmed by the days events, he often walks. He walks along an area with open fields, and enjoys that. He often saw a man walking his dogs along the fields. The dogs would run free and so very happily, jumping and racing, turning and joyously exploring. All but one, who stayed close to the man and ran in tight circles as they progressed.

One day Laird felt he could ask, and did, “Why does your dog do that? Why does it run in little circles instead of running with the others?” The answer was that the poor dog had spent most of its life before the man got him, living in a cage, where he could only exercise by running in tight little circles. Sadly, the animal could not break the notion that this is what running meant.

The led Laird to this remark: “And so we run in tight, little circles, even while immersed in open fields of grace and freedom.”

Read it again, and let it sink in. We do, we all do. The poor lady from the forum cannot escape into the freedom and grace that God has given her to think openly about her God and the people of God. She is trapped in a tight circle, looping illogically but somehow satisfying for her. It brings her some safety and comfort that her world, her God can be defined in definitive terms. Her version of Roman Catholicism is akin to fundamentalism of course, but she cannot see this. She may remain stuck all her life with an image of God that never changes or expands, and thus she will neither expand nor change either.

She is but a striking example of us all. To some degree, in some areas of our lives we live in the ever looping video of the way things are and must be to keep us comfortable. We cannot relate to the dogs running in the field, they are in some sense not us, not like us. We are different, and must remain tightly controlled here.

As we meditate and contemplate our God, let us all ask that we may be shown those places within us that are closed and hidden, fearing exposure to a greater and perhaps uncomfortable new truths.  Let us ask to be opened from our illusionary securities and face the reality of life and the world. Let us ask to grow up a little more today. Blessings.

Tackling the Interior Me

Tags

God, Jesus, Lent

If you see a guy with long hair and flowing robes, running by your home,  pulling along a panting white middle aged lady, that would be Jesus and me. Just so ya know.

The reason is quite simple. In my very best Jackie Gleason voice: “I got a BIIIGGGGGG MOUUUUTHHHHH!”

You heard me. I said it the other day. I said that I was experiencing one of those high moments in my spiritual life. I figured Jesus was too busy to hear that, having to finish off marking the Oscar balloting and all, but no, he heard me. He tends to take me at my word.

So, it seems I’ve started off the Lenten season a bit earlier than I expected to.  You see, I think of Lent as a time of great interior reflection. I not only try to enter into my Lord’s passion but I try to figure out what is wrong with me, where I am wanting and in need of repair and improvement. Like I said, I expected to start that process in a couple more days, but I guess Jesus is no follower of calendars. We started Saturday.

Now that you are thoroughly panting to know what I’m talking about, I’ll set the stage. I have returned to THAT forum, you know the one I mean. The one that sucks your soul dry and spits you out bruised and wondering if you even know your name anymore. Black becomes white, and so forth there. It’s a big black hole of anger and lousy theology.

The reasons were simple. I got bored one day. I used to be a big user of MIRC. For those of you who are unaware, that was the original “talk” medium on the internet. You downloaded a program, hooked into a server and ended up choosing from hundreds of “rooms.” Once in there, you could chat in real time with any number of people at once. There was public conversation and private. I really loved it, and frankly, met a ton of people in real life. The Contrarian and I even used it before we met in real life.

Anyway, I missed the immediacy of chat. The forum can approach that sometimes if you are both on at the same time. You can carry on a delayed conversation of sorts. I have met a number of really fine people there, despite the fact that most of it is frequented by reactionary numb skulls.

Also, I pick up some interesting readers for my blog. One guy there carries my web address and visits from time to time. I see that a fair number of others do as well. I’ve met a few Episcopalians too.

Anyway, a couple of threads had devolved as we say, into rather nasty remarks going each way. I was having a hard time being civil to people calling me a heretic for being a non-Roman Catholic, and to protesting that we Protestants had no right using creeds and such that they claimed were the exclusive property of their Church. Being told that you aren’t smart enough or haven’t studied enough to yet realize that there is only ONE church and it is theirs gets a bit old after a while.

I finally got a rather terse post from someone I respected. He pointed out that I had been hailed from the mud, and apparently decided to join in the dirty mess myself. I was in effect no better than they, though he conceded I was articulate, and had something valuable to say. He questioned my approach.

Well, I was crestfallen in a word. The wingnuttery types I just get angry with and dispute, but someone I respected? Talking to me this way? Well, it gave me pause. I began to think and the more I did, the more I realized that I couldn’t avoid the fact that he was right. I had succumbed to the swamp and joined. I was not representing Christendom any better than my attackers.

Yesterday, I went to Church. I recall as I do most every Sunday that Jesus seems so very close to me there. I frankly have not felt that way very often in any other church. Our Bishop was visiting and that always is a treat. He’s both articulate and funny. He gives a great sermon. We have a newly installed deacon, we had a great bible class, I was feeling pretty darn joyous.

I was thanking Jesus for leading me to this place, among so many new deeply spiritual people. And then I remembered, and I whispered, “Jesus, heal me from my arrogance and ego. Teach me to preach the truth as I know it with humility and kindness. I’m having a lot of trouble seeing your face in some that I meet.”

I returned home, and some time later, I got on the computer and went to see what was being said today. The person who had so correctly accused me, had left a message. He expressed sorrow at his words and said some very nice things. He encouraged me and gave me a couple of tips to make my posts less threatening in their sounding to those who feared my message.

I thanked him profusely, glad that our forum relationship seemed repaired. I answered a few posts directed at me in this new way he suggested. He happened to be around, and quoted part of one of my posts to me. “You see, the Holy Spirit, is already at work. Good job!”

And indeed, I believe that is true. I don’t have to play in the same mud pit. The fact is that some people will continue to overstate their church’s views no matter what you say. They will state as fact that we Protestants are all just pretenders, unaware that we offend God by our prayers and actions in our churches. I apologized to one woman, and made my points in a gentler way. She replied quite pleasantly. She ended by saying: “I hope your journey at the TEC is but temporary. I feel sure that the Holy Spirit will enlighten you soon and you will see that there can be but one true and holy church, and that you will return to it. ”

No doubt this women doesn’t have a clue how rude and unseemly her remarks are. Nor how prideful. Imagine telling billions of souls that they haven’t the knowledge which you have, and thus are deluded? But she means well, I suspect she really does.

And that is enough. Enough for me to smile gently, and back away. Thanking her for her thoughts as I chuckle to myself. It’s one step. And that is enough for God I warrant. One step, and then hopefully another. If I stumble, well, I know I have someone to catch me. And I’ll keep trying until  this more humble me becomes me, God willing.

If this is any indication. Lent will be a busy time for me this year. Blessings to you on your journey to the cross this year.

*** picture credit to http://www.oneyearbibleblog.com