Letting go of data

Monday in the First Week of Lent

If we have forgotten the Name of our God,

or stretched out our hands to some strange god,

Will not God find it out?

for he knows the secrets of the heart.

Psalm 44:20-21

After spending much of the day on tedious tasks, I learn that I somehow failed to save some of my work and instead sent an empty spreadsheet to my colleague. I still have the data, so all is not lost. But my brain is tired of numbers and soulless accounting; I want to be doing something else, even some other work, anything that brings gladness and energy and a sense of accomplishment. How do I praise God when the work is dull?

Maybe a cookie would help? Yet I know that while that sweet short cut might brighten my senses for a moment, what I need is not distraction but deepening.

I close my eyes, breathe deeply, and intentionally release the numbers and statistics and bookkeeping from my head. I am in need of reconciliation not with data but with God.

And when I set my consciousness to searching out the holy, I find it. I know what brings my heart deep joy. Here, at the beginning of Lent, I need this reminder to forsake strange gods: the god of accomplishment, the god of doing, the god of proving my worth. Here, at the beginning of Lent I need to return to God.

Encouragement

Saturday after Ash Wednesday

Send out your light and your truth,

that they may lead me,

and bring me to your holy hill.

Psalm 43:3

The day is spent in planning. I meet with a group of church leaders, read drafts of reports, and create two different slide shows, one full of data and one full of pictures, both portraying the life of a community of faith. All of this work is testimony to the vibrant life grasped, nurtured, hoped for, and shared by a group of people who have nothing else in common but the courage to believe that Jesus brings love into their lives and the world.

Regardless of what comes of today’s work, I am satisfied--filled with admiration and gratitude for the people around me. They are my guides. They reflect the light and truth of the holy.

If I ascend to the holy hilltop, if I make it through Lent to the mystery of Easter, it is not by my own steam. It is with the help, encouragement, and company of others who have also chosen this path. And it is by the Light emanating from God’s love for us all.

Resonance

Friday after Ash Wednesday

Be strong and let your heart take courage,

all you who wait for the Lord.

Psalm 31:24

The nap sneaks up on me, the result of a comfy chair and late afternoon sun. I wake disoriented, the audio book I was listening to still playing. One part of my brain seems still immersed in the story. Another part begins to wonder how much time has passed and how I will ever find the point in the book when I fell asleep. 

I come fully awake and pause the audio. The sudden quiet seems to make the house feel emptier and I realize how much I was enjoying the resonant tones of the narrator’s voice, its beauty soothing me even while I was no longer conscious of the words or meaning.

God’s voice must be like this. Always speaking to us, narrating to us the way forward, even when we cannot hear it or understand it. Tones of loving-kindness and holy ferocity and blessed assurance accompanying us, fortifying us with strength and courage and all things necessary for salvation.

Out of focus

Thursday after Ash Wednesday

Be still before the Lord

and wait patiently for the holy one.

Psalm 37:7

As I step out the door, I glance toward where the tulip and crocus bulbs live in my yard; they had poked green tips above the ground a few days ago. To my surprise I see the purple of a crocus bloom and stop to take a picture of this sign of spring and hope.

For some reason, I cannot get the camera to focus on the bloom and am left with a blurry shot. Ironically, out of focus is a bit how I feel on this day after the solemnity and holy encounters of Ash Wednesday.

At the beginning of this dusty path of Lent, I am reminded that it takes time for sacred things and everyday things to come into focus. It takes stillness and patience to encounter the holy.

Entrance

Ash Wednesday

For the Lord knows whereof we are made;
and remembers that we are but dust. Psalm 103:14

The grey morning wears a dusting of frost which seems to me a right beginning to this day of quiet and solemn devotion. 

Yesterday, I exited a store into the rainy afternoon and was gifted with the sight of a glorious rainbow, it’s arc bright and complete across the cloudy sky. It seemed to me an invitation, an entrance from one season into the next.

So today, having passed under the prism of God’s promise of life and renewal, I begin my journey along the dusty paths of my own mortality. Remembering that I am dust. Remembering what God does with dust.