A Daily Lent

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...