Lent
Introduction
The Lenten journey is not a smooth, rational, linear path. Again and again the readings chosen for us over these many weeks (in the Revised Common Lectionary) teach that following the Holy One is a surprising, counter intuitive, and costly way of becoming fully human and nurturing the divine within us. Before the journey is over we shall likely have lost much of our certainty and self satisfaction but we will have been offered such free and freeing extravagant love that I trust we shall know that we have been given much more than has been taken from us.
No matter how many times we walk this path there are ideas and images to be shaken loose and repented of, there are wounds we have not attended to or been ready to be healed of, and there are divine embraces and feasts to be enjoyed. Because the Lenten journey is very much the faith journey it is about letting go and receiving, being driven into the wilderness and ministered to, taking each step attentively even when the terrain we are travelling through is hard or momentarily uninspiring.
The true discipline of Lent is to give ourselves over to the process that just may make us new creations. But it can be hard so make sure that you have good travelling companions and if for any reason you are particularly fragile at the moment then you may want a different process that is gentler. Life may have done more shaking and shattering than you need already. It is alright to rest some years.
If you would like to get a flavour for how I work with the seasons of the church please feel free to look at the Sample material that was used in Advent.