Thaw

Monday in the Third Week of Lent

Turn now, O God of hosts, look down from heaven;

behold and tend this vine;

preserve what your right hand has planted.

Psalm 80:14

I almost overlook it altogether as I toss a can into the recycling bin on the side porch. After all, there is not much to see—just banks of brown trampled mush emerging from the melting snow. But as I turn back toward the house, it finally registers on me what I am seeing: the garden bed along the side of the house is making its presence known. 

It doesn’t look like life yet. But beneath the sodden mess seeds and bulbs and corms are being split open by tendrils pushing their way up toward the surface. I can’t see them, but I know the fragile yet determined green shoots will emerge—they must. Soon it will be time to tend to them and remove the remaining untidiness of winter.

What else is waiting beneath the surface, outside of my notice? How much potential life escapes my observation? How many other green things are ready to spring forth? How ready am I for the new life God promises?

I, also, am emerging from a winter that has covered me and hemmed me in. I, too, need tending. I head back into the house, contemplating just what God has planted in me, curious about what kind of new growth I will encounter.



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Comfort in the storm

Saturday in the Second Week of Lent

O tarry and await the Lord’s pleasure;

be strong, and he shall comfort your heart;

wait patiently for the Lord.

Psalm 27:18

One website I am using for my work is producing documents stripped of their data. The other one is down completely, displaying only an error message. The attachments I had sent myself through email, trying to circumvent the misbehaving web platforms, will not download claiming they are damaged. 

As my friend Kim says, I am being tossed about in the wilderness with technology.

How do I tarry in this mess? Why would I want to linger here, being pitched to and fro by corrupted digital systems while trying to troubleshoot my head above troubled waters?

My need to get things done tells me not to hesitate but to forge ahead.

But the sacred song is calling for me to wait…and be comforted. 

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Searching

Friday in the Second Week of Lent

Though my flesh and my heart should waste away,

God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever.

Psalm 73:26

I wander from room to room in my house, retracing my steps, looking for my glasses. Clearly I have arrived at that age. I check the top of my head just to make sure I have not made that mistake again. Of course the irony is that I am trying to find my glasses when I can’t see very well. They have to be here somewhere.

In my spiritual life too, I can find myself meandering from place to place searching for a misplaced thought or insight, repeating steps without result because I cannot see. Age is like this. I am less confident, just when I think I would be more. 

This week in lunching with a friend we both struggled to recover the name of someone we know well. “We talk about the wisdom that comes with age,” my friend says, “but what about the aging brain that can no longer locate what it knows?”

I would think that after all these years of spiritual practice, I would be more sure of God, more faithful, my heart more firmly fixed. But I forget my way, am assailed by fears and doubts, reach out for sacred intimacy and find my hands empty. Yet I know the promise—that God is faithful.

I find my glasses the third time I look in the same place. After all, they had to be somewhere. And God is somewhere too. Once again I am called to practice trust. And to remember that all ways belong to God.



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Oasis

Thursday in the Second Week of Lent

You strengthen me more and more;

you enfold and comfort me.

Psalm 71:21

All at once I am done. I have stayed late in my office to finish several tasks. It has been a day of flying loose ends, and I want to gather them all up before I lose track of them altogether. But halfway through the umpteenth task, I know I can do no more. I save the document and shut down my computer closing application after application.

I have somewhere better to be. In a parish hall nearby, people are gathering. Teens and young adults and busy parents and middle aged and older folks are preparing a meal together. There will be freshly baked bread and conversation and contemplation and welcome. And it won’t matter to anyone that I arrive late.

I soon find myself sitting in a gentle circle invited into Sabbath reflection. And later around the tables, we enjoy an unhurried meal, graciously serving each another, passing tenderness and regard and mindfulness to one another along with the chickpea and cucumber salad.

I am grateful for the choice I made, and that such a choice was made available. In a world that does not want any of us to stop long enough to breathe, some have stepped aside to create this oasis where I feast on companionship and generosity, and where together we lift our voices in prayer to the One who embraces us all, strengthening us for the way ahead.

Boundless

Wednesday in the Second Week of Lent

I see that all things come to an end,

but your commandment has no bounds.  

Psalm 119:96

The page from my witty daily calendar reads, “Spoiler alert! Everybody dies.”

I have to laugh. This is one page I will tuck away with a few others I have kept to pull out again on a day I need a lift of spirits.

Of course it is no spoiler at all, as most of us learn this important plot development at an early age. All things, even those most precious to us, come to an end. Yet I find that I am easily lulled into a sense of permanence. I like to order my life, set up systems so it all works, put controls in place to guarantee my security. As if I can structure all my life’s variables into an effective plan that will run along smoothly and indefinitely.

But life isn’t like that. Systems break down, situations change, children grow and have different demands, relationships transform for better or worse, institutions implode, things end, and people die.

Except for God, the source of all. God’s love and command of creation are not things that end. God cannot be bound within a lifespan, cannot be confined to a particular time or space or situation, cannot be restricted by doubt or even unbelief. I am the one who is limited. 

So, with my imperfect grasp of the hope that sustains me, I choose to stumble along in the wilderness for yet another day, trusting in holy boundlessness that, paradoxically, draws me close in a loving embrace.


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Washing away weariness

Tuesday in the Second Week of Lent

You sent a gracious rain, O God, upon your inheritance;

you refreshed the land when it was weary.

Psalm 68:9

I finally have a chance to thank my neighbor. We cross paths in the early morning, getting our teenagers out the door and on the way to school.

“Was it you who shoveled our walk the other week?” I ask. We had been out of town during a snowstorm and arrived home to find a clear path to our door.

He nods his assent claiming it was nothing.  It is the kind of nothing that neighbors do for one another, I think, as I spread salt on the ice in front of my house and continue on to salt the frozen walk for my neighbor on the other side.

These nothings are the gracious rain of God, washing away the accumulated stress of this winter in our urban neighborhood. I think of small kindnesses that often go unacknowledged and their power to refresh. I am certain on this morning that I have not been grateful enough for living among people who simply care for the well-being of those nearby even when we hardly know each other. 



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Sluggish waking

Monday in the Second Week of Lent

Whenever I am afraid,

I will put my trust in you. 

Psalm 56:3

The phone wakes me five minutes before my alarm rings. I stumble into something that resembles consciousness and make my way across the room already knowing that the recorded voice I will hear will tell me the schools are delayed. 

Even though it is close to the time I usually get up, I cannot come fully awake. Wisps of dreams swirl in my brain refusing to come into focus and rather than moving into my day I am slowed by subtle fears.  That I will drop the ball, forget an important deadline, fail at a small task that will have grave repercussions for others. Fear that I have already disappointed someone or several someones.

This is what I have to work with this morning.

And as I acknowledge this truth, I also am reminded that I have other resources. The discipline of prayer. The practice of bringing before God my self regardless of the circumstances. The oft repeated experience of laying my fears at the feet of the Gracious One and  receiving strength.

Once again I propel myself toward prayer book and journal and supplication, and once more I find solace and encouragement and grace.