A Daily Lent

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...

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...