A Daily Lent

A Larger, Freer, More Truthful Way Saturday after Ash Wednesday – February 29, 2020 When Beatrice Bruteau describes a contemplative as someone who lets go of the old ways that seem “natural” to us in favor of that which is larger, freer, and more truthful, something in me says, “Yes!” and something else in me says, “I can’t!” She’s right. It’s not “natural” to us that we should love others without qualification. But this is part of the transformative process, the slow and messy shift in the interior life to which the contemplative is invited. Our vocation is to live in union with God, and this is the way God loves. This is how Bruteau says it: We have now identified the basic life principle of the communion of the saints. That is what is meant by abiding in Jesus’ love. Live in the kind of love-world he has created, the love-context in which he lives. Do it the way he does it. “Love one another as I have loved you,” leaving out any regard for “deserving” or “lovability,” eith...

The Illusion of Being Lovable Friday after Ash Wednesday – February 28, 2020 Being lovable – the kind of person who will be loved – takes immense energy and attention. Humans of all cultures and races spend themselves on that which will cause them to be worthy of love in their particular context. The radical notion of grace and God is that we are loved just as we are. We cannot do anything to be loved more. We cannot do anything to be loved less. This notion is radical because it is a complete game-changer. If we could integrate this truth, letting it seep deep into our beings, we would cease playing so many of the self-referenced games we engage in moment by moment . . . the attention-getting games . . . the games in which we must pretty-up both our exterior (physical appearance) and our interior (secret and hidden) world . . . our fears of being unnoticed and underappreciated. Again, read what Beatrice Bruteau wrote about loving and being lovable: All this means three int...

Fairness and Deserving Thursday after Ash Wednesday – February 27, 2020 Matthew 20:1-16 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. 3 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went. “He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ 7 “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. “He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’ 8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones ...

Ash Wednesday February 26, 2020 I’ve come to believe and experience that a chief characteristic of God is God’s endless Self-giving. God gratuitously gives away who God is. God is not stingy, but generously spends Divine mercy, compassion, love, and goodness on the world. That this Self-giving is gratuitous means that we do not earn it, deserve it, or win some worthiness contest to receive it. God’s Self-giving is not conditioned upon our actions, our morality, or the vibrancy of our faith. We cannot begin any discussion of “unconditional love” until we jettison our notions that various degrees of spiritual performance get different quantities of God’s goodies. Yet, at the root of most religious systems, humans have developed complex notions for how to win God’s favor. We teach them, preach them and instill them in our young and old. These systems work for crowd control, but they are generally unworkable in helping us relate intimately to God. Self-giving that is not predicat...

Fat Tuesday February 25, 2020 The season of Lent suggests starkness, struggle, and difficulty. Typical Lenten images include desert and dust, pilgrimage and preparation. Words like repentance and redemption show up often. Some folks image Lent as a time for a spiritual house-cleaning. Those images are appropriate and good, with a long history in the Church. They help us realize that we don’t appear on Easter morning to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ without some context, without making a journey toward that celebration. I affirm those understandings of Lent and their corresponding images, but I want to suggest another image for Lent. Lent is also the time to dig deeper into the heart of God, to find ourselves immersed more completely in the mercy, compassion, and generosity that are at the center of life. This may not be a typical Lenten theme, but I believe it carries significance for us. The journey with Jesus toward Holy Week, the cross and Resurrection is a pilgrimage o...