A Daily Lent

Be Present to the Desert Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Lent – March 31, 2020 The desert feels arid, uncomfortable. We wish we could be somewhere else. We long for life to be different. And this is exactly where we find ourselves during these days . . . in this desert we call coronavirus, physical distancing, and lockdown. We want to run, to get away . . . we want things to be the way they used to be . . . we distract ourselves to keep the daily news at arm’s length. In short, we find different ways dream of escaping the desert. This desire to escape is not unique to our time in the desert. In ordinary life, we can tend towards escape, as well. But whether it happens in the desert or in normal, everyday life, our desire to escape essentially represents our resistance to the place we are at that moment. This is a continual temptation in the spiritual life . . . to resist the present by fleeing to the past or running off to the future. Simply put, this posture means we are not...

God in the Desert Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent – March 30, 2020 Dealing with the coronavirus pandemic seems to be all that is on anyone’s mind at the moment. We are experiencing a sobering moment in time. Where is God in this moment? Where is God in any desert experience? It is one thing to affirm in normal times that God is present always and everywhere. In these edge experiences that press hard on us, though, we may find that our usual felt experience of God is missing. We don’t have the same sense of God as we ordinarily do. Often we find that what Cummings calls, “the purifying action of the desert experience” centers around our notions of God. In other words, the expectations and beliefs we have built up around God – who God is, how God is, where God is, and so on – in ordinary days gets tested, even purified, and the desert experience presses hard on those assumptions. In fact, a shift in our image of God may very well be what comes from a desert experience such as th...

We Are in the Desert Sunday of the Fifth Week of Lent – March 29, 2020 The entire contemporary world has been thrown into an experience of desert. All our usual norms and routines have been upended by a highly infectious virus. We are in uncharted territory, as “experts” remind us day by day, trying to stay true to best practices, and yet on ground that is unfamiliar – and highly uncomfortable – for most all of us. That we are dealing with the coronavirus pandemic during Lent is its own irony – or the mark of God’s mysterious provision! Someone texted me yesterday to say, “ This is the lentiest Lent I’ve ever lented .” The season of Lent actually parallels the 40 days spent by Jesus in the desert (Mt. 4:1 – 11) after his baptism in the Jordan River. The days of fasting and facing the temptations of the adversary prepared him for the onset of his ministry and confirmed the word he heard at his baptism: “ This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased ,” (Mt. 3:17). As...

Christ at the Center Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent – March 28, 2020 The first understanding in Christian spirituality is that God is the center of life, the gravitational pull that holds all things in orbit. I am not the center. You are not the center. My family is not the center. My country is not the center. The coronavirus is not the center. The government is not the center. The Church is not the center. Our faith is not the center. The Bible is not the center. Only God is the center of life. To orbit around anything or anyone other than God is to place faith in false gods. Idolatry is the Old Testament word for it. Esther de Waal has some thoughts about Christ at the center of life. If I am to put Christ at the centre, as St. Benedict would have me to, that then displaces me from the centre. Perhaps I had not noticed how subtle that temptation was, that insidious danger of putting myself at the centre so that the emphasis was on me – me serving God, me tr...

The Subtle Temptation to Self-Fascination Friday of the Fourth Week of Lent – March 27, 2020 In times of crisis, when the abnormal is the new normal, we can be tempted to look after our own self and those close to us, to the exclusion of “others.” Hoarding goods – so I have more than enough, whether you have enough or not – is simply one expression of the human desire to preserve self. I imagine we have all felt the urge to “look out for number one” as the coronavirus threat has grown. To be fully human means not to be invested solely in self-interest. The fully human life sees oneself in the context of the human family. We live in a web of relationships that reach much farther than we can see. We have responsibilities not just for ourselves and our near circle of relationships . . . we share responsibility for one another. These are Esther de Waal’s words: But these vows also carry an even greater significance. While they help me to be human they also at the same time p...

Listening As Openness and Willingness Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent – March 26, 2020 Benedict of Nursia wrote a guide for persons who sought to live in community out of a common desire to orient life around God. That guide is called The Rule of Benedict. And the “vows” we have explored this week are all integral to Benedictine spirituality. The Benedictine vow of stability means that we stand still and attend to who we are in this moment. We intentionally nourish the soul, we tend to the fires of the inner life. We do not move at such a frantic pace that we cease to know ourselves. Be still. The vow of continual conversion means that we are always journeying on. God is continually forming us, shaping us as the people God created us to be. We continue to journey, to explore, and to make new discoveries, both in the outer world and in the our own inner world. We are still moving. The vow of obedience , as Esther de Waal describes it below, simply asks us to listen . . ....

God Is There All the Time Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Lent – March 25, 2020 Sometimes events in the outer world press us to grow in ways that we had not anticipated. The current coronavirus pandemic is one example, it seems to me. Our outer circumstances are forcing us to make adjustments we likely would not have made in “normal life.” Sometimes, our ongoing transformation depends on circumstances that more or less push us into some kind of life-change. Continual conversion does not just happen to us. We hold onto things to which we have grown accustomed. We hesitate to let go of that which is comfortable. Surrender and detachment can be painful, even costly. We are pressed into shifting our life-stance. We have to be reminded moment by moment that our ongoing conversion is moving toward some larger end. God is making us the people we were created to be. We are being shaped according to the purpose for which we were originally created. So God comes to us in this work. God...

Continual Conversion of Life Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent – March 24, 2020 In my religious upbringing, conversion was a one-time event. I made a decision for Christ, made that decision public at an altar call, and then coasted on. That was the conversion package. It took me years to understand that conversion was an ongoing action of God’s Spirit within me. I did not arrive fully formed in that altar-call moment. That night was simply a moment in which I was conscious of making a significant shift in my life’s direction. The real work of conversion lay ahead of me . . . and still does. This work is ongoing. The journey does not end. The contemplative says that standing still is important, being present to every moment of life. But moving onward is also crucial. If we stand still, we calcify. The contemplative holds together the dichotomy that we must stand still in order to know God and know ourselves. At the same time, we must journey on in order to bring mercy and compa...

Standing Still in the Present Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent – March 23, 2020 Each of us has our own ways of running away from ourselves. We have our own patterns that distract us from seeing what is true and real about ourselves, God, others, and the world. But it seems to me that in these very different days, as we keep one eye focused on the coronavirus and another eye on our own altered daily routine, many of us find our usual patterns upset. We may not have our usual distractions available to us. I’ll confess that we’re only a few days into the social distancing and days apart from close contact with others . . . and already I’m finding myself out of sorts. It is easy enough to rehearse good days in the past . . . or to fantasize about what may or may not happen in the future. But I also realize that whenever we fixate on the past or the future, we immediately pull ourselves out of the present. It is a challenge to stand still in the present . . . to allow the present...

Facing Our Restlessness Sunday of the Fourth Week of Lent – March 22, 2020 Our current coronavirus-induced isolation has challenged us in many ways. Among the challenges, we are finding that when isolated from others, we have to befriend ourselves in new ways. We also find that our usual ways of being productive are disrupted. We may not think of ourselves as geared for productivity . . . until we are forced into a more passive, isolated stance for a few weeks or months. We begin to say things like, “I don’t feel like I’m accomplishing anything,” or “I need to find some projects to keep me busy,” or “I get bored so easily.” Especially in Western culture, we have internal wiring that equates personal worth with productivity. We assume that I am what I produce , that what I do defines me. Then, we are pressed into a situation in which our doing is more limited, and suddenly we find ourselves in a crisis of being. Who am I? Why am I here? These are huge questions, fundamental ...

Happiness Rises Saturday of the Third Week of Lent – March 21, 2020 I don’t want to undersell the difficulty and challenge in de Mello’s words this week. The work he describes with attachments is some of the most rigorous interior work we can undertake. At the same time, we experience a growing sense of interior freedom when we engage this spiritual work. There is a lightness of being that comes from not being weighed down by those people and things we cling to. And we have the experience, Fr Anthony describes, of “happiness rising.” Happiness arises between persons who are meeting without the desire to control, manipulate, or impress one another . . . happiness arises when we hear a beautiful piece of music . . . happiness arises when we participate in an act of kindness that makes a difference in the world . . . happiness arises when we see an object of beauty and stand still just to take the moment into ourselves. I love de Mello’s phrase. Happiness rising does not sugges...

Understanding and Awareness Friday of the Third Week of Lent – March 20, 2020 I remember sitting in front of Sr Adeline O’Donoghue at Ruah Center in Houston in the late 1990’s as she helped me unpack my convoluted interior life. Slowly I was seeing more and more of my interior . . . some of my first glimpses of the person I had become over the years. And I didn’t like what was popping up to the surface. So one day, exasperated by the mess that once again had arisen from my dark depths, I spilled out my story to Sr Adeline, told her what I was seeing about myself, and reiterated how disgusting I found the darkness within me to be. She quietly looked at me – she had a way of looking straight to the interior of a person – and said, “Jerry, what would you like to do about that?” I thought about it for a moment, before saying, “I want to get rid of it! Obliterate it!” She replied, “And if you could obliterate it, what would be left of you then?” I had no response. Nothing. I b...

Hearing the Whole Orchestra Thursday of the Third Week of Lent – March 19, 2020 Every human being sees the world in terms of how they have been programmed to experience their world. This is a long process. We’ve been at this our entire lives. No one wakes up this morning with a world-view that comes from nowhere. Developmentally, we each arrive at where we are today through the process of learning to attend to certain things and block out others. That means my dispositions and prejudices have been conditioned within me. I have been rewarded for some, and thus have held onto them. I have been punished or ostracized for others. Unless I am a strong person, I likely will let those go. Spiritually speaking, the nature of attachments is that we learn over time to give out-sized attention to some things, primarily because we view them as essential to our happiness. And we ignore other things because they don’t seem to “make my life better.” Attachments are not wrong ( right or...

Seeing What Is Real Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent – March 18, 2020 A spiritual practice is a contemplative practice if it helps you see the truth about God, self, others, and the world. Life is as simple – and as painfully difficult – as that. Most persons never question their perception of the truth. They experience life through their own filters (attachments, beliefs, fears) and never take time or energy to consider the filters. And for many persons, over the course of a lifetime, their filters never change. They die in old age clutching the same filters through which they saw God, self, others, and the world when they were 10 years old. The role of spiritual practice is to help us cut through the illusions of life. A good spiritual practice will help you see what is real more clearly. When you see, you may not like what you see, but then, liking what you see is not the point. Do you want to see the truth? Or are you content to continue seeing an illusion? [Before any...

Attachments, Beliefs, and Fears Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent – March 17, 2020 In yesterday’s readings, Anthony de Mello mentioned the filters through which we experience life: attachments, beliefs, and fears. These filters, according to de Mello, hinder us from love. In today’s reading, de Mello says more about attachments, beliefs, and fears. He is not interested in softening his message. De Mello is interested in speaking the truth about God, life, and love. Your attachments: You will inevitably look for what fosters or threatens them and turn a blind eye to the rest. You won’t be interested in the rest anymore than the avaricious businessman is interested in anything that does not involve the making of money. Your beliefs: Just take a look at a fanatic who only notices what confirms his/her belief and blocks out whatever threatens it and you will understand what your beliefs are doing to you. And then your fears: If you knew you were to be executed in a week’s time it ...

Hearing All the Instruments Monday of the Third Week of Lent – March 16, 2020 Much has been written about the echo chamber in which persons in the 21st century live. We listen to news channels that reinforce our world view, keep company with persons who confirm our vision of the world, and worship in places in which we are most comfortable. We hear voices similar to our own and we receive the stimuli comfortable for us. To be outside our chosen comfort zone can leave us highly disconcerted and even pained. When we filter the people and stimuli that reach us (by either ignoring them or denying them), we limit our capacity to love. Jesus said it is no virtue to love those who love you. Love is known by its regard for the other, for the stranger, for the outsider. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said the defining mark of the Christian is love for the enemy. 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies a...

Attachment Is Blind Sunday of the Third Week of Lent – March 15, 2020 Whenever I teach on the spiritual life and the word “attachment” comes up, almost immediately a panic flies over the room. The tension becomes palpable. Smiling faces turn into frowns. People begin to squirm, restless in their chairs. Sometimes a person will even say something like, “I knew I would have to give up something I like!” Spiritually speaking, attachments are those things to which we cling, expecting that they will give us life. They almost never do, especially as – or maybe because – we clutch them for dear life. Most things we hold onto don’t have the power to give life to us. They are finite people and temporal things. It’s not within their power to grant life; but we’re slow learners and though experience has taught us better, we still are hesitant to give up what we hold. The language of the Hebrew Scriptures for attachments was “idolatry.” Idols were those things that became gods. In our da...

Both/And, not Either/Or Saturday of the Second Week of Lent – March 14, 2020 Healthy spirituality holds together both the inward journey and the outward journey. We are not given an either/or choice; rather, we engage the two movements in a both/and way My first movements into spiritual formation were so radically different from any way I had known previously that I imagined this new journey inward was going to remove me from the difficulties of the world . . . that the inner life would heighten my immunity to all that was problematic in the world. I thought the inward journey would insulate me from “the world, the flesh, and the devil” (as John Chrysostom, the early spiritual writer, said centuries ago). Only over time did I come to see that the journey inward is matched by a journey back out into the world. The two movements must be held together. We don’t have the privilege of choosing one or the other. And make no mistake . . . this way leads to life . . . it is a hard wa...

Is There Another Way? Friday of the Second Week of Lent – March 13, 2020 Over the years, we grow so accustomed to the broad gate and the wide road that we cannot imagine any other way to live. Wide roads are comfortable and give us lots of wiggle room. We learn to maneuver on wide roads. Elizabeth O’Connor, in the paragraphs below (which continue her thoughts from yesterday’s Lenten post), says that usually what jolts us from the wide road to the narrow road is “ an event, or a flash of insight, or a demanding ache. ” And then, after we have been jolted awake, God “ puts in the heart and the mouth the question, ‘Is there another way?’ ” Richard Rohr often makes a similar claim. He regularly says that our two most compelling teachers on this spiritual path are Great Love and Great Suffering. Those experiences have the capacity to shake us awake, so that we begin to ask about and seek out another way. That “other way” is what Jesus calls the “narrow road” and “narrow gate.” Thi...

Wide Roads and Narrow Roads Thursday of the Second Week of Lent In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches his followers using this analogy: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matt. 7:13-14, NIV). You may want to shift your thinking a bit today. Traditionally, this passage has been used as a description of a person’s relationship to sin. The wide road is the road of a sin-filled life, I’ve heard often. But today, consider instead that Jesus is talking about our inner landscape. The wide road is not the life of wanton sin, but a life that basically flows along with the way things are, influenced by cultural mores, social patterns, and values that are generally accepted by a community or nation. The wide-road person is not reflective, that is, he or she does not question the validity of those values,...

Inner Freedom Wednesday of the Second Week of Lent – March 11, 2020 We are social beings. All of our lives, from our first days to our last day, we constantly are learning how to live in relationship with each other. Often, though, the clues we take from others are about people-pleasing, adapting ourselves and our behaviors to the expectations of those in our life-world. It is quite common – and in fact, may have become the cultural norm – for persons to shape their lives to the expectations and demands of those around us. Inner freedom is one of the key ideas in the spiritual life. Inner freedom does not have to do with our outer freedom, that is, how free we are to come and go and do as we please. This kind of outer freedom is what adolescents strive for, and what most adults continue seeking throughout life. Inner freedom is different. It is the freedom to be the person you were created to be, rather than the person who is pushed and pulled by circumstances, conditions, a...

Living Close to Your Center Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent - March 10, 2020 When the inner life of the spirit is loosened within a person, there most always follows a burst of creativity. This creativity coincides with the emergence of our soul, which has its own vocabulary made up of images and symbols. Your soul, after all, doesn’t show up in words and eloquence . . . but in pictures, images, symbols. (This is why most of us are more in touch with our soul when we are in a place of natural beauty . . . a forest, in the mountains, on a seashore, and so on. In these places, words fall flat . . . our soul naturally connects to the more nuanced created world surrounding us.) The spiritual life makes you more expansive, more open to vastness and that which is Beyond. It does not cause you to be narrower, more protective, or more frightened of the unknown. This openness and expansiveness is the life of your soul. In today’s reading, Elizabeth O’Connor says that authentic crea...

Inner Resources Monday of the Second Week of Lent - March 9, 2020 We all carry within us inner resources we have turned away from or that we do not yet know. A part of the spiritual journey is discovering these hidden, undeveloped resources lying latent within us. I find that most persons distrust their own inner resource to a great degree. We may trust someone else’s inner resources, but we can’t bring ourselves to trust our own. We cannot believe, at a deep, inner level, that we could really be entrusted with the precious treasure of God’s life within us. Elizabeth O’Connor uses a descriptive image for this distrust. First, she affirms the transforming power welling up from within us like “springs of living water.” But then, she says we spend our time “off drinking at wells that serve for a time, but leave us anxious because we so quickly thirst again.” These other wells may satisfy us for a time, but ultimately they leave us thirsty . . .until we learn to drink the springs o...

Can I Trust My Response? Sunday of the Second Week of Lent – March 8, 2020 Too often our life with God is segregated so that a life of worship, prayer, devotion, and love of God is taken as a different thing than a life of service, mission, action, and love of neighbor. Every Christian community I know struggles to balance these two movements. Some give themselves to prayer and devotion, feeling that it is the better part. Others give themselves to action, wanting to see the fruit of their faith. Then a large group – perhaps the majority – stand in the middle, confused over the whole matter, and thus paralyzed, not doing a thing. Of course, the answer is not “either/or” but rather “both/and.” An inward journey of prayer, meditation and openness leads to a love of God that transforms life. When we travel into the heart of God, we begin to see differently and think differently. Inner transformation happens in that seeing and thinking. Transformation is not for our personal enjo...

Holding All of Life Together Saturday of the First Week of Lent – March 7, 2020 The life animated and guided by the Spirit – what we would call a spiritual life – is not separate from our normal, everyday life. We do not step in and out of these two ways of doing life. I hear some people, for example, talking about their “time for doing” and their “time for being,” as if life is divided into compartments that can be kept separate from one another. The spiritual life – or life animated by God’s Spirit – is not a life which removes us from the world or which touches only one aspect of our existence. The spiritual life, both being and doing, touches every all of life. It umbrellas everything. Henri Nouwen holds together these two poles . . . what he calls the “worry-filled life” and the “life of the Spirit.” The goal is not to move back and forth between these two ways of doing life, but rather, to increasingly bring them all under one umbrella, so that the life of God’s Spirit...

Inner Experience of Oneness Friday of the First Week of Lent – March 6, 2020 To engage the interior work of the spiritual life means that we begin a journey which will be long, slow, and messy. I don’t know any way around that reality. I first made conscious contact with God in the context of a faith tradition which promised – both implicitly and sometimes explicitly – that conversion was a one-time decision that would set you up for a lifetime. The goal was the moment of conversion, and any growth or becoming after that initial experience was a bonus. I quickly realized within my own self that simply responding to an altar call and mouthing some words about giving my life to Jesus did not change all that was sideways in my life. But at that time, I had no idea what to do about it. My best guess was that every time I “sinned,” I lost Jesus and had to go back through the process all over again – I must not have “really meant it” when I gave my life to Jesus all those previous ti...