Rend the Internal, Not the External

Joel 2:13 - "Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for God is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and God relents from sending calamity."

It's Ash Wednesday. Once again, I am not inside of a church building, but sitting at the computer. My life is at a very different place than it was just a few years back.

I miss the daily encounter with buildings that represent faith, devotion, community, brokenness and healing all at once. I miss being consistently in a place where forgiveness is an expectation, not a seldom considered "thing."

Wherever we are, though, we have the opportunity to "return to the Lord." Today, this year, I am working on a "return" of sorts. I take this opportunity called Ash Wednesday to call myself to pay better attention to matters of the body, mind and spirit. Each needs healing. Each seeks forgiveness. Each makes up the me that can be, that once was and will be again.

Today, I take a look at the inside and challenge myself to open up the wounds, the hurts, the pains and let them bleed - let a river flow through me and heal the flesh that is weak because of the baggage it has been carrying.

I cannot change the external - what others choose to see, what others do to me, what burdens others place on me. I can only change the internal - the response, the desire to see me as I know I can be.

God is gracious and merciful...slow to anger...not quick...but very very slow...and more than that...God is abounding in love...ABOUNDING...and seeks not to destroy and bring pain, but to wrap us up in love and bring healing.

May this God be known to me today, and through all 40 days and beyond. May this God be known to you, too.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

Christ is Risen indeed!

Lent has been banished for now - and death does not have the last word!

It was good to celebrate in my "home church" today by leading in music.  The service was just right.  Then time was spent with the dogs at agility, and then dinner with family.  A breath from the stress of life - thanks be to God!

Thank you to those who followed me during my lenten journey on this blog.  I have not yet decided if I will keep this up on any regular basis or not - or if I will change the name of the blog if I do.  But for your presence, thank you.

Christ is Risen!  Alleluia.  Amen.

Friday...but is it Good?

Today is Good Friday...and it's shown it's presence in very loud and outrageous ways.

Snow on the coast...horrible wind and rain storms inland...news of a loved one's loss...and news that my nephew has been sentenced to 42 months in prison.  

Even the heavens are weeping with all of the Good Friday stuff happening.

I played for a Tennebrae service at my home church tonight.  It felt good to release the pain thru my fingers and out the piano.  Was it perfect?  No.  Was it good?  Yes.

I don't remember the last time I had such a strong connection with this day on the calendar...I don't remember the last time I felt this kind of pain on a Good Friday...and now I'm waiting for Easter morning.  But this Easter morning won't bring everything I need to feel the joy I want to feel.

So, I'll sit in this moment...I'll pray...I'll meditate...I'll consider things...knowing that throughout all of life, there are plenty of Good Fridays.  And Easter will come...just not quite yet...

Gathering for Supper...

I have many fond memories from my childhood of gathering together with members of my family around the dinner table.  We would feast on simple home-cooked feasts.

There would be laughter, teasing, reacting - a competition for mashed potatoes.  And then the delightful sigh from a full belly.

On the anniversary of this holy supper, at the celebration of Maundy Thursday, I can't help but think what it must have been like for the disciples to gather together to celebrate the last supper.  Perhaps, intermittent, there was a bit of laughter, some sharing, some familial times - before everything grew quiet and the night took on a very serious nature.

It is in this gathering to share in the Lord's supper that we discover that we are part of a larger family.  And if we can be honest with ourselves in that holy moment, we can look around the table and see true sisters and brothers gathered with us - those who annoy us, those who make us laugh - and we all somehow are satisfied as we walk away having received tiny proportions of food and wine.  

If we can see "family" in this meal, we can see our own humanness and our need for forgiveness being poured out for us in wine and bread, blood and body, the essence of our Christ.  

This night starts out with joy and ends with a somber tone.  Sometimes life has those moments.  May God infuse us with a joy that knows no end, even as the disappointments, greed and desperation sometimes overtake us.

It is nearly finished...

Lent, that is.  And in many ways, I am so glad.  But before it leaves, it gears up for a few days of intense moments - remembering the last supper, reliving the suffering and death of our Lord, and then the time of prayer and waiting before the Easter sunrise.

I have been imperfect during this lenten season in my commitment to daily blogging.  Still, I am grateful for the opportunity to blog and to have friends on the journey with me at the times they've been able to join along.

Today I am remembering how important it is to hold onto faith - to keep believing when life is overwhelming.  In this week I have been reminded just how much I need someone bigger than myself to believe in, in whom to put my trust.

Thank you God for another day of living, breathing, trusting, hoping, remembering.

Time...

Time is such a precious commodity.

In the last couple of days, there have been moments when time has seemed to slow down, speed up, change swiftly, seemed to be off, seemed out of sync with events in my life.

Time is never what we hope it will be, but it simply is.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

 ¹ There is a time for everything, 
       and a season for every activity under heaven:

 ² a time to be born and a time to die, 
       a time to plant and a time to uproot,

 ³ a time to kill and a time to heal, 
       a time to tear down and a time to build,

 ⁴ a time to weep and a time to laugh, 
       a time to mourn and a time to dance,

 ⁵ a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, 
       a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

 ⁶ a time to search and a time to give up, 
       a time to keep and a time to throw away,

 ⁷ a time to tear and a time to mend, 
       a time to be silent and a time to speak,

 ⁸ a time to love and a time to hate, 
       a time for war and a time for peace.

These words were put to music by The Byrds in the 1960s.  "To everything, turn, turn, turn, there is a season, turn, turn, turn, and a time for every purpose under heaven."

Chronos vs. Kairos - our measured segments of time vs. God's moments, God's time

Living with Kairos is so much harder for me than Chronos.  I'm a planner - I want to get things ready, watch the clock, prepare.  I find it so difficult to sit back, wait and listen.  I want my sense of time to be equal to God's moments - but it seldom is.

Living in the present moment can be painful at times; some moments linger rather than pass quickly by.

Today, I am thankful that I don't always know what's around the corner.  In my life experience I've discovered, though I don't always appreciate, that what is right now is better than what will be, and may also be better than what as already been.  Today I am thankful for those kairotic moments when even for short bit, I "get it."

On to Jerusalem

Today is Palm/Passion Sunday.  I love the beginning of Holy Week, and I especially love the Triduum.   

This is a fragile time to make an appearance at a church to which you've never been.  Traditions vary from one Lutheran church to another.  And unless you've been a part of services there in the past, it's hard to know where, how and when to jump into processions commemorating these celebrations.  This becomes a clear demonstration of the kind of work that any church needs to do in order to welcome new people to embrace this holy time and consider participation in a worship community.

I am preparing to be the musician for services at my home congregation for Good Friday and Easter.  It will be a strange time in many ways...because our church will not be there in its same form next year...because I rarely attend services there anymore...because the services do not resemble some of the deeply profound and moving services I've participated in as a pastor.

But it will be good.  It will be good to offer worship and praise with music.  It will be a sacrifice of time I do not have (so indeed a sacrifice) and it will provide me with the opportunity to prayerfully discuss with God, via music, my true purpose and calling - a constant search, it seems.

Today I am thankful for unexpected opportunities, times of musical prayer and Holy Week.