And the Spirit immediately drove him out in the wilderness...
I know, I know you are probably getting sick of these little puns on scripture, but I can't resist, its cheesy, but hey, its fun too! So the question of the day is what did the Spirit drive Jesus out in the wilderness in? A Hummer most likely, I have to believe it would be pretty hard driving a Cadillac or some other Luxury car in the Desert of the Middle East. I suppose it was really a camel. I Jesus was an Episcopalian from Minnesota, or rather the Spirit was an Episcopalian from Minnesota, it must have been a Subaru of some sort.
Lent has arrived and I have found myself desiring NOT to do anything for Lent, it used to be a futile liturgical Season for me, I would want to change my ways in all sorts of different behavior patterns I had developed and the most I could ever get anything to stick was like a week long journaling thing that quickly because too tedious for all the things I had to do already in my life. Lately, meaning the last five years, I have not taken anything on, except the crazy programming events at the Church, in fact my lents tend not to be so challenged with giving something up or even changing a behavior or pattern that isn't so healthy. But this year I have heard some of the scripture readings in a very different way. I have heard, in a way Ihave never heard, a grace filled presence of God.
I am not worried about my sins, my bad ways, or anything like, that, never really have been I guess, but what has really come forth is this sense of gratitude I have for all that I have in my life. It is a sense of gratitude that keeps expanding, so what I believe it is is something more akin to my vision of God as that vision grows to understand the mystery of God in new and different ways. I can't really explain it, but it has to do with learning, and not a distilling of my experience or rational reasoning type of learning, but a deeper learning that is all about revealing who I am as a child of God. Some of the most transformative emotional and intellectual moments I have ever had in my life have come in moments of prayer, prayer with others, moments where I have had to stop praying and really think about what I had just said in a prayer or heard in another prayer.
Wow, I feel like I am way too rambling here, anyway, Lent has arrived, Jesus has been driven out into the wilderness in the spirits Hummer or SUbaru or something and we all begin this journey to Easter preparing for the Big Day of the church... Lent is a time of learning, growing and expanding my worldview and my own vision of God. Lent is about creating a more expansive view of God, one that is different at the end of these forty days from the one we began with... Yeah, how will my life change in the next 40 days? What will this Lent bring? I can't wait to find out!
Be well!
Lent has arrived and I have found myself desiring NOT to do anything for Lent, it used to be a futile liturgical Season for me, I would want to change my ways in all sorts of different behavior patterns I had developed and the most I could ever get anything to stick was like a week long journaling thing that quickly because too tedious for all the things I had to do already in my life. Lately, meaning the last five years, I have not taken anything on, except the crazy programming events at the Church, in fact my lents tend not to be so challenged with giving something up or even changing a behavior or pattern that isn't so healthy. But this year I have heard some of the scripture readings in a very different way. I have heard, in a way Ihave never heard, a grace filled presence of God.
I am not worried about my sins, my bad ways, or anything like, that, never really have been I guess, but what has really come forth is this sense of gratitude I have for all that I have in my life. It is a sense of gratitude that keeps expanding, so what I believe it is is something more akin to my vision of God as that vision grows to understand the mystery of God in new and different ways. I can't really explain it, but it has to do with learning, and not a distilling of my experience or rational reasoning type of learning, but a deeper learning that is all about revealing who I am as a child of God. Some of the most transformative emotional and intellectual moments I have ever had in my life have come in moments of prayer, prayer with others, moments where I have had to stop praying and really think about what I had just said in a prayer or heard in another prayer.
Wow, I feel like I am way too rambling here, anyway, Lent has arrived, Jesus has been driven out into the wilderness in the spirits Hummer or SUbaru or something and we all begin this journey to Easter preparing for the Big Day of the church... Lent is a time of learning, growing and expanding my worldview and my own vision of God. Lent is about creating a more expansive view of God, one that is different at the end of these forty days from the one we began with... Yeah, how will my life change in the next 40 days? What will this Lent bring? I can't wait to find out!
Be well!
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