Examen

I'm working on preparing for our first Lenten program tomorrow. I'm reading up on the history of Lent, which is really interesting. We will cover some of the highlights briefly tomorrow, but the focus of our series is going to be on what Lent can be for us this year, an opportunity to try some very ancient forms of prayer and spiritual growth that may be new to a lot of folks.

One of the things we'll start out with this week is the Ignatian Examen, a deceptively simple approach to spiritual self-examination that was an integral part of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus (bka Jesuits). This approach has, I think, been integral to the lives of Jesuit institutions ever since, and Protestants have been fortunate to rediscover it (along with some other forms of Christian spirituality) in recent years. A lot of the folks that I have heard talk about it in Protestant circles are doing youth ministry.

Let me explain. The idea is that God is always speaking to you through your life. So, to do the examen, you look back over your life for the last day, or week, or several hours. for the "consolations" and "desolations," and, especially over time, learn from these high and low points about the ways God is working in your daily life. It was fun for me to realize in retrospect that this is why my friend who had been an RA at a Jesuit university always had her girls share "highs and lows" when they had hall meetings. And I'm pretty sure it's why a friend's youth group shared "blessings and bummers" every time they met. The third step, after recalling the high and the low, is to try to identify how God has been speaking in this day. I think sometimes this really only emerges over time, and it may or may not be directly related to the high and the low.

My bummer/ low/ desolation of the day has definitely been the sort of panic that crops up all too often for me on a Saturday. It's often true that I say "yes" to too many things, and have more to do for work in a week than I can get done in the time I have, and that's a problem. But what compounds that problem is something I really struggle with -- spending as much time and energy worrying about all the stuff I have to do as it would take to just do it.

The blessing/ high/ consolation was dinner with family at a new restaurant in our neighborhood. It's exciting on several levels, because not only is it the third restaurant in the neighborhood (and the other two are in an intense competition to see who can provide the worst possible service), but it also has really quite a nice vegetarian selection, which can't be taken for granted at a place with "bar and grill" in the title.

God has definitely been speaking to me today, as S/he often does, through the words of Roberta Bondi. I'm reading her book A Place to Pray: Reflections on the Lord's Prayer, and I expect I'll be blogging about excerpts more specifically in the coming days. But I was touched today by her account of experiencing God's holiness in her life, long before she ever had the theological language to call it that. It, along with the prep for this Lenten program, comes as yet another reminder to wake up to God's presence in my own life.

Sin?

So, I found out today that you can download some songs for free from the Franciscan Sisters of Charity. They selected songs that they feel have a "discerning spiritual message," and I have to say, their taste in both style and content runs pretty closely to mine.

I feel like very often, secular songs express spiritual concepts better than even a good sermon (or blog post). I am struck today by the way that so many many songs capture the sense of alienation (from God, others, the world) that I think everyone feels sometimes... one of the "spiritually discerning songs" is "The Maker," by Daniel Lanois.

What the song captures so well is what it's like to know yourself alienated from God and the Way Things Should Be. In classical Christian language, a sinner. "I'm a stranger in the eyes of the maker." And in this state of estrangement, Lanois writes, "I could not see for the fog in my eyes. I could not feel for the fear in my life."

I often have trouble making sense of sin in a personal way. I get it at a societal level much more easily. But this song helps me remember, better than any sermon, the hundred little ways it's easy to give in to fear that cuts off my feelings for others, the things that separate me from God and others and make it harder to see things as they truly are. So maybe we do need this season of repentance after all...

Observing Lent

We just got back from a fundraiser happy hour for Loaves and Fishes, a meal program for homeless people that my cousin's girlfriend is very involved with at her church. She mentioned that her priest had encouraged people to attend in the service on Sunday, encouraging it as a first act of charity for the season of Lent.

It was funny, because going to a happy hour where the bar is donating part of the proceeds to charity is really far from more traditional penitential, ascetic type observances (fasting, giving up chocolate, etc). It also, as charity goes, didn't feel burdensome. I do think (perhaps it's obvious?) that a very wide range of things fall into the category of valid and meaningful ways to observe Lent.

But I'm thinking about two questions: in the spiritual aspect of service, is what you give up to do something good as significant as the impact of the good you do? And, there are so many potential partnerships like this where everyone (the bar, the organization, the people who came to Happy Hour) walks away feeling good about themselves... how can we make them happen more often?

Meditations on Mortality

Well, Lent begins again today, and with it my discipline of blogging as an attempt to focus my mind and heart on the spiritual in the everyday.

Today is Ash Wednesday, and in our service this evening, I (along with the other pastor at my church) will place ashes on people's foreheads in the shape of a cross, admonishing them to "remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

I feel like my life in the past year has been too full of reminders that all life returns to ashes and dust. We mortals are so fragile, and the difference between life and death is so often a breath, a step in the wrong direction, away. Three young women, either loved by me or by those I care about, have died suddenly and far too young. Two of them were struck by cars while crossing a street.

I've also marveled at the other end of life, how new life comes into being, especially over the past 15 months, watching my little baby and being amazed that such a tiny thing can be fully alive.

Life is amazing. Life is fragile. That's the deal. For me, this is a big part of the answer to one of the Big Questions of Lent (and, I suppose, Christianity) -- Why did Jesus die? Jesus died because he was human. We all die. It's the price of this precious life.