Tag Archives: rest

Saturday reflection: Lent 2012

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The second most visited post on this blog is one I wrote about Lent in 2011: 33 things to give up for Lent. All year long people have come to this post by searching for Lent. Which is interesting, since Lent is a period of forty days (plus 6 Sundays) between Ash Wednesday and Easter. It doesn’t last all year.

Several years ago, some friends and I wrote about Lent. When I started that blog, I said

What I’m seeing is posts from you which would wrestle with what we learn when we give up that which we enjoy for the sake of better understanding that in which we delight. Not all of us are from a liturgical background. That’s the point. I want to have some wrestling with lent, with fasting, with self-denial as self-discovery, with the relationships between forms and faith and relationship.

For 2012, I decided to gather some of the posts I’ve written about Lent and fasting. I also decided to post it 10 days before Ash Wednesday in case you want to plan ahead.

And so you know, in 2012 Ash Wednesday is February 22 and Easter is April 8.

Some comments on fasting from Matthew 6

Some comments about silence

  • Deliberate silence - Excerpt: “I am involved regularly in deliberate unsilence. Every day I am generating words and thought images and stories and photos with the intention of disrupting silence. And so are you.”
  • habits of sight. - Excerpt: “Some habits are desirable. We call those “disciplines.” Some habits are not. We call those “addictions.” Some are neutral. We call those “drinking coffee.” For the last six weeks I gave up a way of seeing called twitter. When Lent started, I hadn’t exactly intended to give it up. However, I was beginning to wonder whether Twitter was a discipline (staying in touch with a group of people that I was beginning to care about and for) or an addiction (staring at the flow of comments in every spare moment) or neutral (stopping to say ‘hi’ while walking to the office coffee pot).”
  • listen – Excerpt: “I discovered that I use noise. I discovered that when I drive and start talking with God, I finish a couple sentences and reach for the radio. I didn’t realize how often I do that until I watched my hand reach for the radio that no longer was there.”
  • 8 ways to get better at following, part 2 - Excerpt: “Most of us have heard about sabbaticals. A sabbatical is a break from something. It could be taking a day each week with electronic devices turned off or six months away from work. The idea of sabbatical is rooted in the idea of sabbath.”

Some comments about Sabbath

I know that Sabbath seems like the opposite of Lent. It’s time to eat and rest, where Lent seems to be about suffering. But for many of us, truly taking time off, giving up the franticness for family and feasting and frivolity and fellowship, would be its own kind of fast.

  • Our sabbath group - Excerpt:  We started a couple years ago. Just for six weeks. Now we can’t stop. It’s not complicated, by the way. It starts with “you hungry? For supper and God?” And goes from there.
  • Burdens and breakfast - Excerpt: “These were people who weren’t just tired. They were tired from living up to expectations. They were tired from having to look over their shoulder, expecting pastors to pester them, expecting Pharisees to flog them. Every step was a burden. And Jesus says, “try my yoke”.
  • A question of stopping - Excerpt: “Late at night, when being driven by the list, rest seems desirable, but out of reach. In the morning, when being driven by the list, rest seems long gone. In the middle of the day, between the calls and the visits and the ambiguity and the precisely-phrased demands, rest seems impossible.”
  • On rests - Excerpt: “I used to play tuba. As such, there were often long stretches of music pieces we played during which I didn’t play. We would spend these times counting very carefully (1-2-3-4, 2-2-3-4, 3-2-3-4 and so on). It was stressful at times because you had to make sure you entered at the right place.”
  • Time is hard to take - Excerpt: “Ironically, it is easier to confess to you my inability to stop than it is to just stop. Is it possible that there is in the confession a desire to receive compassion, empathy, understanding…from you? I mean, you know exactly what I’m talking about. You are, as I am, a part of a culture which, whether inside or outside church, finds stopping difficult. We feel as though we must be productive in our work, in our rest, in our play, in our wasting of time. If we can’t do something, we must at least create the facade of busyness.”

go ahead. be a sheep.

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As much as I would like to believe that I am not a sheep, I am one.

Not, I suppose, a blind follower of a random mindless herd. (Unless that’s what all followers of Christ are). I like to believe that I have the capacity to think with some originality. I like to believe that I have some passion to do things that matter. In fact, I even have a passion statement.

But every time I hear conversations about not being sheep, about being original, about being independent and trailblazing and leaving cubicles, I struggle a bit.

Because I ache. Because no matter how hard I try I still find myself walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Because no matter how hard I try, I am in the presence of the enemy of my soul. Because I need, oh, I so desperately need still water. Because my soul needs restoration.

And you do too. Right? I mean there are moments when you cannot help but be a sheep. Not the conformist image we fight, but the somewhat fragile being that everyone  - everyone – wants a piece of.

I guess I’m not talking about jobs, about careers, about status and success. I’m talking about what’s behind all that, the gaping hole in your chest behind the facade of the press release. The dull ache the next morning when the sun comes up and everything you thought would work didn’t.

That’s when it’s worth understanding what it means to be a sheep. And what it means to have a shepherd who is willing to lead and feed and heal and restore. And in the middle of the valley, be present. And in the front of the enemies, serve a feast.

It is David’s favorite lyric:  ”The Lord is my shepherd.”

too many words about

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You know what I’d love to give you? Some silence. I’d love to give you some time to stop and think and be still.

I’d love to give me that, too.

You are probably better than I am at stopping. Me? When I sit down to be still, it allows me to remember the things that aren’t done. It allows me to think about what I could be doing with this time. It allows me to fill the time with chatter. Or with clutter. Or with activity.

I wonder if part of the problem with the way I try to be still. I try to concentrate. I try to be quiet. I try to stop, so that maybe I can hear God and hear myself.

Here’s what’s interesting, however. When I decide to spend time with Nancy, I don’t talk about the need to be still.  I don’t berate myself for my incapacity for not being with her. I don’t spend time not with her thinking I should be with her.

I go find her.

If I am having a hard time concentrating, I tell her. (And when I do, it usually comes as no surprise to her.) And I may ask her to help me remember something. And I may say, “can we walk and talk?” And I may say, “I’ll be back in 5 minutes.”

So here’s what I’m thinking. I’m thinking that maybe I should stop worrying so much about emptying my head and start working more on listening to and for Jesus. In the words of other people. In the words written for us by John and Matthew and others.

Maybe if I thought more about conversation with Him and less about being silent first, just like Nancy does, He would help with both.

Happy weekend, friends.

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Related post: A question of stopping

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the day after

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I teach every week in three settings, but I only preach a couple of times a year.

Yesterday I stitched together posts  about John 4, explored  ideas with our Saturday night small group, and preached. I’m grateful for the responses, grateful for what I learned while studying.

I don’t want to talk about the message here. I want to talk about the day after.

The day after I teach or preach is often a pretty numb day. I spend Sunday playing tapes in my head, identifying the “what I should have said” and “what I could have said” and “That was a dumb thing to say.” I know that these are not objective statements. I try to take a nap which has the effect of rebooting my brain.

I say this to let you know that if you teach or preach and this happens to you, you are not alone.

On Monday, I find thinking to be a difficult thing to do. There is often little creativity. There is often little patience. There is often little initiative. There is a tendency to argue with comments about the previous day’s performance, especially if those comments are positive. There is a tendency to think of the previous day as a performance.

I say this to let you know that if you teach or preach and this happens to you, you are not alone.

There is little desire to do what Jesus did in these situations, to go off by himself and spend time with his dad. There is little desire to let responsibility for what people do with the teaching rest with them and with God.

I say this to let you know that if you teach or preach and this happens to you, you are not alone.

I’m glad I’m not alone.

What does it mean to trust?

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(Paul Merrill writes here every First Friday)

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.” Solomon, the man who many consider to be the wisest man ever, said that in Proverbs 3:5.

Jesus said trust is being like a child. Remember how it felt when you were learning to swim and you would flail about in the pool – and then when your parent swam over and lifted you up, you relaxed?

How can we trust in God when He is hard to see, feel? If we listen, the closer we will get to Him.

“All your heart…” We can’t hold anything back. If we have done something we know is wrong, we need to ask His forgiveness. And if that wrong involves someone else, we need to seek them out too. We can’t come before God with an unresolved conflict. True, there are exceptions to this. If that person is gone, we can’t find resolution with them. But God can heal that wound, if we ask Him to. It may take a long time for that healing to come – or it may come very quickly. In this day of instant results, we all get impatient waiting. (And the wound may not be healed in the way we expect.)

“Don’t depend on your own understanding.” I come back to swimming. Remember fighting the water? When you learned to let the water hold you up, you were able to glide across the pool. Depending on our own power can be like fighting God. We all go through life feeling like we know the answers. But the more we learn to trust, the better we can live and breathe.

Try relaxing in God’s arms, if you haven’t before. If you have, try actively trusting more today than you did yesterday. You’ll sleep better too.