Lent starts soon! Here are some resources …
Lent is the period between Ash Wednesday (a day for remembering our mortality) and Easter Sunday (a day for celebrating the risen Christ) that has traditionally been used in the Christian community to focus on sin, repentance, and self-denial.
In recent years, many Christians have been re-traditioning Lent (to use Diana Butler Bass's useful phrase) in a variety of ways.
I've helped create a resource for Lent, working with a wonderful team that includes my co-author of Cory and the Seventh Story, Gareth Higgins. You'll receive a daily email and a weekly video conversation.
You can sign up for this free resource here: https://www.theseventhstory.com/a-lenten-journey/
I've also contributed to a Lent resource called Be Still and Go, here: https://www.trcnyc.org/lent2019/
My friends at the Plural Guild have created another worthwhile resource here:
Whether you choose one or a few - this is a great time to deepen your spiritual roots in the weeks leading up to Easter.
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What I Shared at Stony Point, NY
Thanks to the Presbytery for the warm welcome there. Keep up the great work!
Sorry I didn't have copies of Cory and the Seventh Story there. You can order one online here: https://www.theseventhstory.com/
congregation past present future
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A Poem: Emptiness
The mystics said that God is emptiness.
I never understood.
I walked up to God, my hat held in my hands
Behind my back, my head bent low.
I had this feeling that God was too weary for
Eye contact.
“Are they right?” I asked.
“Are the mystics right?”
There was no answer, so I looked
Up, and there were God’s metaphorical eyes,
looking at me, and in an instant,
I saw.
Such emptiness. Such sadness
In those metaphorical eyes.
(Yet it was not exactly sadness.)
“I have given all away,” God seemed to say.
“I have held back nothing.”
And instantly I saw:
a river, not holding the delightful water, but
giving it away, all away, each moment,
as quickly as it comes, it goes,
it flows.
And instantly I saw it:
a tree, receiving water through its roots, then
pumping it upward, upward, in a million
tiny tubes, out into the leaves, and into the air.
gone.
given away.
And instantly I saw it:
an infant nursing at a generous breast,
full of play for so short a time,
then growing up so fast,
work, work,
giving birth, giving all,
growing old and then, in a sigh,
in a final exhalation,
all received, all given away.
“That is you, isn’t it?” I mused, or
prayed, or both.
“In all the giving, in all the flow,
that is you.”
And I did not fully understand
(I never do) but I saw,
God in the river,
God in the tree,
God in child,
Life, breath, flow, death.
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A Poem: Confession
the old priest was reminiscing:
nobody comes to confession any more, he said,
and that’s a relief. i always hated confession.
it was like getting stoned with marshmallows.
can you imagine it?
father, forgive me, for i have sinned.
it has been six weeks since my last confession.
i ate meat loaf last friday.
i ate a hot dog a few fridays before that.
i coveted my neighbor’s weight loss
every day.
oh, woman, i said that afternoon, when
i could stand no more:
you are boring me, you are boring yourself,
and you are boring Almighty God.
if you think this is what sin is, the church
has failed you.
your greatest mistake is playing along with our silly game
of meat loaf and hot dogs and self-hatred,
straining out Rhode Island and swallowing Texas whole.
here is your penance, i said:
do not say any hail mary’s. do not say a single our father.
never again, until you have the courage to
discover your sins that most need confessing.
she cried. she felt i was rude. I guess she was right.
i was having a bad day.
she complained about me to the bishop.
after his reprimand, i dropped into the safety
of conformity. and played the meat loaf and marshmallows
game myself, and
ah, there is a sin
worth confessing.
*inspired by a story from richard rohr
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Two Readers Write … hard news and hope
A reader writes:
I have recently come upon your books and your views on the scriptures. During an extremely dark period in my life almost thirty years ago which culminated with prison time [which I now refer to as my prisonic journey] I fell on my face on a concrete cell floor and cried out for God to show me His ways. I did this after I became swallowed up in a chaotic cloud of religious teachings from the religion I was brought up in. I was given a Bible and when I attempted to read it all that resulted was a strong sensation of being far away from God. There is way too much to share in an email so I will simply fast forward and share that I have come to a level of understanding similar to your view. The very first thing I discovered when I was released from prison was that the professed Christian community is not very receptive of those who do not conform to their pecking orders, stale regurgitated traditional interpretations, rituals, and regimental worship structures. It was disheartening but now that our Lord has guided me onto your path I am encouraged that He is awakening many out of the religious coma. I therefore encourage you to remain strong in what the Holy Spirit has blessed you with…sincere eyes to see! God bless!
Several years ago ... my 90 yr old mother was on her death bed from cancer. My brother, my wife and myself had been taking shifts sitting with her. The morning of the sixth I was sitting with her, not knowing in the next 12 hours she would pass on. She would wake now and then and be very livid and talkative. Sitting next to her bed was a lay person from the Catholic church. She had been a life long catholic, her aunt was a Mother Superior at one point and her uncle had been bishop. So they had been raised pretty strict.My mother motion me close to her and in her weak voice goes, You know where I am, I said yes, in the hospice ward. She asked if I knew who the lady was and I said yes. She asked if the priest was coming for last rites, and I said yes just as you asked. She smiled, said yes that’s right. They are here for me because I am dying.She laid back closed her eyes, sighed, my church is dying. There will never be a layperson to be there with kind words and scriptures, No priest with last rites. It will wither away as more and more stop believing. Then she opened her eyes looked at me one last time, said go get you doctorate, help save the religion.Ten minutes later she slipped into a coma. That evening she pasted away.Today I started reading your book “The Great Spiritual Migration” I was struck like a ton of bricks by what you said in just the first few pages.
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