lent @ home

We have entered into the season of Lent.

Usually when we think about Lent we think of giving up things like sugar, alcohol, or complaining, or we think of being more intentional about prayer or meditation. Those are all good things, but Lent? It's waaaaaay more than that.

Lent is that period of time before Easter where we spend some time exploring the overarching themes and underlying foundations of our faith and spirituality: repentance, transformation, lament, courage, death, change, joy, sorrow, suffering, and loss — just to name a few. The wisdom underneath it all is that those things matter. That there’s something essential about them. That practicing and embodying those things helps us experience the fullness of life and become truly and fully human. 

"Wait ... wait … ," you may be thinking, "you want me to enter into and embody death, suffering, and loss? You want me to change?!" 

Yup. I do. Scary, right?  Lent may be the most intimidating season because it gets us to explore uncomfortable stuff.

And it's there we need to remember why we do Lent in the first place: we do it because it's part of being human. We do it because in order to be whole and at peace, in order to be truly transformed people, we have to deal with this stuff. We do it because it all belongs. We do it ... and get ready for this ... because we can.

We can. As in we are up for it. As in we have the capacity. As in we'll survive it ... and not only survive ... we'll actually come out better for it. There's a reason Easter follows Lent. We do the uncomfortable stuff because we trust it leads to new life. We trust that we'll rise up from it. 

Maybe that's something to remember as we head into the season: We do this for the sake of healing, transformation, and wholeness; we do it knowing we're not alone; and we do it knowing we can — knowing that while it'll be hard, sweaty, and uncomfortable, we will rise up.

Lent @ Home is designed to help you make the most of the season. In it you'll find 35 (yes, we're starting a bit late this year, on February 22) practices, reflections, art, and prayers that we invite you to do each day (maybe even several times a day!). Each one is designed to draw us towards wholeness and peace. Some are easy, some are more difficult, but all can help us do that essential work of transformation. 

So as you head into Lent, remember two things: 1) You’re not alone — you’re doing this with the rest of your faith community and that Spirit of Life is with you. 2) The work is worth it. 

grace & peace

n.

Unless otherwise indicated, the reflections were written by Rev. Nick Coates.

1

Whenever you do something hard, don't forget to breathe. This is one of those things that is profoundly simple for the profound impact it makes. Air is not only needed for our body and brain to actually function, but it's how we spiritually function too. In our tradition breath is associated with God — with that Divine Spirit who isn't only with us, but who strengthens, empowers, and inspires us. 

Remembering to breathe is one of the most basic but important spiritual practices you can do, especially when you head into something difficult and hard. As we head into Lent, we invite you to start with a breath. As you practice this, remember what you are breathing in.

Inhale ... 1 ... 2 ... 3

Hold ... 1 ... 2 ... 3

Exhale ... 1 ... 2 ... 3

2

Lent is often called a season of repentance. It’s a period of 40 days geared towards, as I’ve come to say, "leaving home in order to find it.” It’s where we do the tough but liberating work of leaving the systems, attitudes, mind-sets, dispositions, and postures that lead us out of life, and entering into new systems, attitudes, mind-sets, dispositions, and postures that lead us into life. This is why Lent is so much bigger than chocolate. It’s a journey towards a new place to inhabit and call home, the place and home Jesus invites us into.

Take some time to journal/reflect: "What home do I need to leave and what home do I need to move towards?"

3

If you read enough Bible stories (especially the ones we get during Lent), you're bound to come across the word wilderness. It is an important word within scripture. It's the same word used to describe the experience of the Exodus … that time in-between slavery and freedom.  It’s the same word used in Genesis to describe what existed before God created … this grand expanse of darkness and chaos yet to be brought into order and purpose.

It's the word used when Jesus entered into the desert ... this time of searching, reflecting, and rumbling. What we talk about when we talk about wilderness is a place or time of turmoil, change, and unrest; it’s a place or time of searching for that which brings coherence, meaning, connection, identity and purpose into our lives and world.

What wilderness are you needing to go into this Lent?

4

Take some time today to pray for your enemies. (To you who immediately say, ‘I don't have enemies’— yes you do.) Pray for those who constantly rub you the wrong way; who believe things you are diametrically opposed to; who you are in a conflict with; who you carry resentment towards.

5

In order to do Lent well, we need to be honest with ourselves. It takes a good dose of humility to move towards healing and wholeness. Unless we can name some things that are holding us back from the life we really want, we'll never get there.

What do you need to be honest about? What things need to be named in order for you to move forward?

6

A parable for you to reflect on:

Judas, after he had betrayed Jesus, found himself at the bottom of a deep abyss. He lay there, distraught and desolate for a couple of centuries and then slowly began to stir and sit up. Looking up, he saw a faint light at the surface, miles and miles above him. The light, so familiar yet so new, seemed to be calling to him and so he began to climb.

Sometimes he would slip and fall back and spend a century or so regaining lost ground. Sometimes he rested, not moving for years on end. But he kept trying. He kept climbing. As he climbed, the light seemed to grow stronger and glow more brightly. It seemed to energize him and to call to him.

He kept climbing, his limbs gaining strength the closer he came to the light.

After a couple of millennia, he finally reached the top, his hands and body scraped and fatigued from the climb. Judas struggled to find a place to rest his hands to hold up the weight of his body as he hauled himself up through the opening at the top of the abyss.

When he did, his muscles shaking with the effort, he found himself in an Upper Room where a young rabbi was having supper with his friends. The young rabbi turned and greeted Judas, his face glowing with pleasure:

"Judas, welcome home! We have been waiting for you. We could not continue the supper without you!"

7

Whenever we encounter something difficult and hard, whenever we experience push back from others or from within ourselves, whenever we feel ourselves closing up, shutting down, and turning back, here's a mantra Brene Brown invites us to repeat:

soft front, strong back, wild heart

8

Go bake something and share it with a loved one.

9

Lent isn't just about transforming ourselves, it's also about transforming the world. Take some time today to learn about human trafficking:  http://www.endslaverynow.org/act/educate

10

Read and reflect on Psalm 111:

Praise the Lord!

    I thank the Lord with all my heart

    in the company of those who do right, in the congregation.

The works of the Lord are magnificent;

    they are treasured by all who desire them.

God’s deeds are majestic and glorious.

    God’s righteousness stands forever.

God is famous for his wondrous works.

    The Lord is full of mercy and compassion.

God gives food to those who honor him.

    God remembers his covenant forever.

God proclaimed his powerful deeds to his people

    and gave them what had belonged to other nations.

God’s handiwork is honesty and justice;

    all God’s rules are trustworthy—

        they are established always and forever:

        they are fulfilled with truth and right doing.

God sent redemption for his people;

    God commanded that his covenant last forever.

        Holy and awesome is God’s name!

Fear of the Lord is where wisdom begins;

    sure knowledge is for all who keep God’s laws.

        God’s praise lasts forever!

11

One of the biggest threats to transformation and change is cynicism. To be a cynic is to give in to the destructive resignation to saying ‘no’ to anything other than what we already know and already see.

What are you saying 'no' to? What can you do to say 'yes' instead?

12

One of the core characteristics of a life of peace and wholeness is gratitude. Name five things you are grateful for today and for each one, take some time to reflect on why. If it's a person or a place, go one step further and tell them.

13

Check in with yourself and set some intentions by filling in the blanks:

I am so ____ today.

I crave _____.

I am concerned about _____.

I hope for _____.

With my heart set upon ____,

I will _____.

14

We are two weeks into Lent. If it's getting a bit tough, here's a prayer to remind you that you're not alone. Repeat it until you believe it:

God beneath me.

God in front of me.

God behind me.

God above me.

God within me. 

15

One of the practices Lent draws us into is lament — the practice of naming what is off, wrong, and unjust in our lives and world, and asking God to make it right.

What laments do you have? What should be that isn't? What injustices do you need to name?

16

An icon is a piece of art (but it can be anything, really) that acts as a symbol of something greater than itself. We often use the language of 'pointing to' with icons — they point to something bigger and beyond themselves. In that sense, icons sometimes help us see and engage with God, life, truth, and meaning. Below is an icon from our friend Scott Erickson. Take some time today to look at this icon and let it help you see and engage with something sacred.

17

One of the hardest parts of transformation is the fact that it necessitates leaving things behind, making changes, and establishing new boundaries and practices. As we intentionally work on ourselves this Lent, here's some wisdom to sit with and journal about:

“Do not think you can be brave in your life and work and never disappoint or upset anyone. It doesn't work like that.” - Oprah

18

If you read through the Gospels, those four different accounts of who Jesus is and what God is doing through him, and if you pay attention to whenever Jesus talks about the soul and spiritual life — about how to be someone who is connected to God, other people, and ourselves — you’ll begin to notice that he always ends up talking about one thing: Gardening.

He talks about seeds — about seeds being planted, seeds sprouting, about the soil and care seeds need, and about the fruit they eventually bear. Clearly, it seems, Jesus thinks these things have something to do with each other.

I wonder if we miss out on what he’s trying to say by this because in our world and culture we’re all about switches.

We live in a fast-paced, instant-gratification, convenience-is-the-highest-value kind of world, don’t we? If we want some coffee, if we want lights, if we want to go somewhere, if we want to call someone, all we need to do is flick a switch. 

Immediacy has become a huge part of how we think and experience the world to work. And I wonder if we come to think of faith and spirituality in the same way. I wonder if we see it as just another switch. If we want to convert and subscribe to a new belief system, if we want our prayers to be answered, if we want to understand something, we think it just takes a switch, doing this one thing that will bring quick and immediate results.

And perhaps it’s at those moments that  we need to go back and remember what Rob Bell points out about what Jesus says about the spiritual life: The spiritual task, authentic transformation, is less like a switch and more like seed. It's not something we can just flick on. It's a seed that needs to be planted, nourished, cultivated, attended to, and grown. It's something that needs time and cannot be uprooted too early or rushed.

There’s no immediacy when it comes to becoming human. It’s going to take awhile and so we must be patient.

19

Parables are these provocative and often shocking stories designed to rewire us, changing how we live, think, move, and see. Unlike other stories, you don't just read them and put them back on the shelf. These are meant to read, sat with, reflected upon, and rumbled with. With each one, you're invited to ask, "How does this parable challenge me?" Here's one to do just that with:

There was once this fighter pilot who was doing a training exercise and when pulling into a steep ascent went crashing into the ground. She didn’t realize she had been flying upside down.

20

Allow by Danna Faulds

There is no controlling life.

Try corralling a lightning bolt,

containing a tornado. Dam a

stream and it will create a new

channel. Resist, and the tide

will sweep you off your feet.

Allow, and grace will carry

you to higher ground. The only

safety lies in letting it all in —

the wild and the weak; fear,

fantasies, failures and success.

When loss rips off the doors of

the heart, or sadness veils your

vision with despair, practice

becomes simply bearing the truth.

In the choice to let go of your

known way of being, the whole

world is revealed to your new eyes.

21

“Without bravery (we) will never be able to realize the vaulting scope of our own capacities.  Without bravery (we) will never know the world as richly as it longs to be known. Without bravery (our) lives remain small — far smaller than (we) probably want them to be." - Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic

22

One of the things I've found myself saying a lot over the past few years is, "Anything good in life requires some sweat." It gets at this idea that anything good, anything worth having, anything that will leave us and our world in a better place, takes effort, struggle, and time. Sometimes, during all that sweat, it can be helpful to remember just what it is you're working towards and what all this sweat is for.

As we're halfway through Lent, what is it you are working towards? Spend some time journaling about your journey and where you want to go.

23

“It can be perfectly healthy to hate what life has given you and to insist on being a bit of a mess for a while. This takes great courage. But then, at some point, the better of two choices is to get back on your feet again.” - Anne Lamott

24

Take some time today and do something kind for a neighbour. (Don’t cheat: choose one you don't know very well or who you've had a beef with.) Reflect on how you felt before, during, and after. How could you incorporate those actions into your daily life?

25

A prayer: God, just as you sent an angel to wrestle with Jacob, send one to wrestle with me. I need to be made uncomfortable, to be turned away from comfortable and convenient answers to my questions, and to be drawn into relationship with people I disagree with. As much as I don't want you to answer this prayer, please do — I know the pain of growth and transformation is worth it. Amen.

26

Breathe by Rachel Held Evans

The Spirit is like breath, as close as the lungs, the chest, the lips, the fogged canvas where little fingers draw hearts, the tide that rises and falls twenty-three thousand times a day in a rhythm so intimate we forget to notice until it enervates or until a supine yogi says pay attention and its fragile power awes again. Inhale. Exhale. Expand. Release. In the beginning, God breathed. And the dust breathed back enough oxygen, water, and carbon dioxide to make an atmosphere, to make a man. Job knew life as “the breath of God in my nostrils,” given and taken away. With breath, the Creator kindled the stars, parted a sea, woke a valley of dry bones, inspired a sacred text. So, too, the Spirit, inhaled and exhaled in a million quotidian ways, animates, revives, nourishes, sustains, speaks. It is as near as the nose and as everywhere as the air, so pay attention.

The Spirit is like fire, deceptively polite in its dance atop the wax and wick of our church candles, but wild and mercurial as a storm when unleashed. Fire holds no single shape, no single form. It can roar through a forest or fulminate in a cannon. It can glow in hot coals or flit about in embers. But it cannot be  held. The living know it indirectly—through heat, through light, through tendrils of smoke snaking through the sky, through the scent of burning wood, through the itch of ash in the eye. Fire consumes. It creates in its destroying and destroys in its creating. The furnace that smelts the ore drives off slag, and the flame that refines the metal purifies the gold. The fire that torches a centuries-old tree can crack open her cones and spill out their seeds. When God led his people through the wilderness, the Spirit blazed in a fire that rested over the tabernacle each night. And when God made the church, the Spirit blazed in little fires that rested over his people’s heads. “Quench not the Spirit,” the apostle wrote. It is as necessary and as dangerous as fire, so stay alert; pay attention.

The Spirit is like a seal, an emblem bearing the family crest, a promise of belonging, protection, favor. Like a signet ring to soft wax, the Spirit impresses the supple heart with the power and prestige of God, and no one — not kings, not presidents, not the wealthy, nor the magisterium — can take that identity away. The bond of God is made of viscous stuff. He has put his seal on us, wrote the apostle, and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee (1 Corinthians 1:22). In the rite of confirmation, which acknowledges the presence of the Spirit in a believer’s life, a thumb to the forehead reminds God’s children of their mark: the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit. It’s as invisible as your breath but as certain as your skin, so pay attention; don’t forget who you are.

The Spirit is like wind, earth’s oldest sojourner, which in one place readies a sail, in another whittles a rock, in another commands the trees to bow, in another gently lifts a bridal veil. Wind knows no perimeter. The wildest of all wild things, it travels to every corner of a cornerless world and amplifies the atmosphere. It smells like honeysuckle, curry, smoke, sea. It feels like a kiss, a breath, a burn, a sting. It can whisper or whistle or roar, bend and break and inflate. It can be harnessed, but never stopped or contained; its effects observed while its essence remains unseen. To chase the wind is folly, they say, to try and tame it the very definition of futility. “The wind blows wherever it pleases,” Jesus said. “You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). We are born into a windy world, where the Spirit is steady as a breeze and as strong as a hurricane. There is no city, no village, no wilderness where you cannot find it, so pay attention.

The Spirit is like a bird, fragile alloy of heaven and earth, where wind and feather and flight meets breath and blood and bones. The rabbis imagined her as a pigeon, the Celts a wild goose. Like a dove, she glided over the primordial waters, hovered above Mary’s womb, and descended onto Jesus’ dripping wet head. She protected Israel like an eagle, and like a hen, brooded over her chicks. “Hide me in the shadow of your wings,” the poet king wrote. “Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings” (Psalm 17:8, 63:7). The Spirit is as common as a cooing pigeon and transcendent as a high-flying eagle. So look up and sing back, catch the light of God in a diaphanous scrim of wing. Pay attention.

The Spirit is like a womb, from which the living are born again. We emerge—lashes still wet from the water, eyes unadjusted to the light—into a reanimated and freshly charged world. There are so many new things to see, so many gifts to give and receive, so many miracles to baffle and amaze, if only we pay attention, if only we let the Spirit surprise and God catch our breath.

27

To be curious is to be holy. It's good — divine even — to explore, learn, and grow. What's a social issue that you know you need to know more about? Maybe it's anti-racism, climate change, poverty, or gentrification. Take some time today to get curious and learn about these essential issues.

28

Part of becoming more human is becoming more loving. Pray this prayer today:

Loving God,

We pray for those in need. 

The unemployed parent worried about feeding her children.

The woman who is underpaid, harassed, or abused. 

The Black woman and man who fear for their lives.

The immigrant at the border longing for safety.

The homeless person looking for a meal.

The LGBTQ+ teen who is bullied and suicidal. 

The one who is struggling with anxiety and depression.

The elderly who are alone. 

Open our hearts, arms, and wallets to them. 

Help us create a world where every life is sacred, 

all people are loved, and all are welcome. 

Amen.

adapted from Fr. James Martin

29

Are things getting tough? Is the momentum fading? Transformation is hard work, isn't it? As the final push begins and things get hard, here's a mantra to carry you through the hard days:

This is what it takes.

30

Transformation is tough work. While it does take resilience and perseverance, it also takes rest.

Practice rest today.

31

There’s an old story about how this head of a convent was doing her rounds, and she came across a nun who was obviously in distress. Asked what was wrong, the nun replied, “I came here to figure out my life and I just can’t see where God is taking me.” 

“Ah,” replied the Mother Superior, “I've been there.” 

“Oh, then tell me what to do.” 

“Easy,” she said, “just pray while standing on your tippy toes. You’ll see much farther that way.”

Try it. Seriously. Say a prayer about your hopes and dreams while on your tippy toes.

32

Peace isn't just a lack of noise and chaos, it's the deep reassurance that we are loved just as we are.

Read this poem by Wendell Berry and then go and find your own wild place where you can encounter that peace.

When despair grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief.

33

some art and wisdom from Morgan Harper Nichols

34

There's one more day of Lent. Here's a tough question to make sure you end with no regrets. On your journey towards growth, peace, transformation, and wholeness, what's the thing this season you've been putting off? What's the thing you know you need to do to make all this work count and matter?

Do it.

35

This is the last day of Lent. Holy Week begins next week. To cap off this season of transformation we're going to do the thing we must do — yes, this is an essential thing! — every time we experience growth no matter how big or small: celebrate! You are now different. You are a new person. You have done AMAZING work. Go and celebrate the movement.