Lenten Journey - Day 4

Time is one of our most precious commodities, so how we choose to spend our time reveals a great deal about our priorities. During this Lenten journey, can we set aside time that is free from the distractions of our lives and devote that time to self-reflection, meditation, prayer, or journal writing? Can we create a few moments or a half hour in our day that is sacred? In a 24 hour period of time, can we set aside even a small portion of it so that we may listen, with expectancy, for God's voice? We long for connection with God and yet we fail to invest our time in pursuing that relationship. May the Lenten season remind us that our time is a resource that when invested wisely, yields spiritual growth.

Lenten Journey - Day 3

What can we do to make spiritual health a priority in our lives? Our lives are full and overflowing with things to do, errands to run, and people who need our care. And yet the Lenten season demands that we pause and reflect: on our relationship with God, on the health of our individual spirits, and on our engagement with the very Spirit that gives us life. As we continue this Lenten journey, I pray that each day brings a moment of intimacy with the Divine. May we hunger for God's presence.

Lenten Journey - Day 2

Lent is a sacrificial time. Many of us choose to give up things that are difficult to surrender. So we force ourselves to lean on the Providential God who gives us strength to admit our weaknesses, shortcomings, and addictions. Lent forces us to admit that we care too much about the concerns of this world: what we eat and what we drink; how we spend our time and how we spend our energy. As we continue along this Lenten journey, may we do the work of self-examination so that our sacrifice may be truly pleasing unto God.

Lenten Journey - Ash Wednesday

As a Protestant, I embrace the imposition of the ashes on Ash Wednesday. It is a sign of my personal humility and contrition before God, but it also connects me to the community of Christ throughout the world. On this Ash Wednesday, I pray that we receive the ashes not to proclaim our holiness, but to acknowledge that we are a community of sinners in need of repentance and renewal. Revive us, Oh Lord. Revive us, again.

Comfort

On a beautiful summer afternoon a few years ago, I sat at an outdoor cafe drinking lemonade and people watching. This is one of the joys of living in a college town: an endless parade of interesting people and stories exist just outside your door. I noticed a young woman in a beautiful sundress; the color was flattering to her skin tone and the cut of the garment was perfect for her body. She looked like a walking advertisement for summer. I kept thinking about her dress and wondering why it looked so familiar to me. It slowly dawned on me that I had that exact same dress.

It was perhaps a week later when I pulled my sundress out of its bag and ventured to wear it around town. I caught a glimpse of myself in the hallway mirror and thought that this dress looked nothing like the dress that was on the walking model. Now that I had actually seen the dress on a size 2 frame, it looked like a potato sack on my size 10 frame. How did I ever convince myself, when trying it on in the store, that this dress was flattering on me? And so I tucked the dress away, in the back of the closet, where clothes go to die.

Last summer, bereft of anything to wear to a picnic, I scoured the depths of my closet and found the discarded sundress. I put it on, along with some strappy sandals, and walked confidently out the door. I hadn't become the size of that walking model. But I had grown comfortable and confident in my own skin. Some tough things had happened to me over those intervening years, but borne of those tragedies was my desire to love myself fiercely, to love the skin I was in, and to be truly comfortable with my flesh.

The same process has occurred with my spiritual walk over the years. There is no "one size fits all" approach to spirituality. I am as likely to worship with Anne Lamott and James Baldwin, as I am to read the words of Paul. I embrace my womanist identification, even as I embrace a high Christology in my theology. I joyfully worship with my whole body in high praise; but I also seek those spaces of silence and stillness. My prayer life consists of letters written to God. The text of my sermons come from Langston Hughes and Audre Lorde. Fasting is as much a part of my worship as is preparing a bountiful table to feed family and friends. I have learned to be comfortable and confident in my own spirit.

And perhaps this is the path to spiritual maturity: wholly embracing the skin you are in, loving the spirit that encompasses it, and using the mind to relish the connections between body and spirit. I'm looking forward to summer, wearing that dress again and others like it, and enjoying the knowledge that God loves me and has fearfully and wonderfully made me.