A Daily Lent

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 ...

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...

Hold Together Doing and Being Monday of the First Week in Lent – March 2, 2020 In the spiritual life, we are not asked to make a choice between doing and being, Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38-42), the contemplative life and the active life. In truth, everything we do is infused with who we are. Our being always shapes our doing. In the language of the Luke 10:38-42 story, we are invited to do our Martha-work in a Mary-way. In other words, to be about our lives with a sense of being centered and anchored in the deeper reality of God. Henri Nouwen wrote about the tension of activity and contemplation in this way: There is little doubt that Jesus’ life was a very busy life. He was busy teaching his disciples, preaching to the crowds, healing the sick, exorcising demons, responding to questions from foes and friends, and moving from one place to another. Jesus was so involved in activities that it became difficult to have any time alone. The following story gives us the picture: “Th...