How strangely ironic that many in the Church should be blinded to the truth that these two gentlemen showed the world. For, in essence, both Galileo and Darwin were using science to claim that humankind is not at the center of everything. Our earth is not at the center of God’s creation, and our species is not at the center of God’s creation. Isn’t this what Lent is supposed to teach us?
In Lent we realize our limitations – both those we choose and those that confront us when our choices fail. Our limits are real, and we can grow from recognizing them.
Lent is not about resolutions. It is about making a “rule” in the same way that monastics follow a Rule of Life. A Rule orders one’s desires and attentions away from the self and toward God, not so that we might be better people, but so that we might draw closer to God.
For the next 6 weeks or so I’ll be teaching a seminary course I call “Contemplative Writing.” This year’s run coincides almost exactly with the season of Lent. It teaches a discipline that can help us “word-people” – teachers, preachers, bloggers — to let our words take us beyond words, and center our lives more fully in God.
Please visit our multimedia meditations and scroll down to the Stations of the Cross. Or explore the offerings at Anglicans Online and elsewhere.
Bishop James Jones of Liverpool writes: Traditionally people have given up things for Lent. Last year in the Diocese of Liverpool many parishes took part in a Carbon Fast. Through it we were able to focus on God’s Earth and its poorest people in whom, Jesus said, we were to find him. This year, in Lent 2008, we invite as many as can to join us in a Carbon Fast.
We mark each other’s foreheads with ashes and admit our common mortality: the kneeling girl, the crackhead who helps me sweep the floor, the stranger at the door. And maybe because I work so much with food––serving bread and wine on Sundays, then groceries from the same altar at the pantry––I think of Lent as an opportunity to admit our hungers.
Yesterday we began talking about fasting, the pre-eminent spiritual discipline recommended by the prayer book for Lent. We got as far as the externals, the nuts and bolts of the discipline. Now we’ll take a step deeper and look into the theology, spirit, and purpose that animates the practice, connects it to Lent, and empowers it as a tool for the Gospel.
I think most Episcopalians aren’t very clear on the practices of fasting. We know what this word means, but there is quite a bit of uncertainty about its boundaries as an actual practice: what is it, why should we do it, and what—if anything—does it have to do with Lent? Let me begin by clearing up the biggest major fallacy about fasting: Not eating is not fasting.
We don’t know who the magi really were, but we know who they represent: you and me. We are seekers after God too – right? And I believe that like them, you and I have been made to know by Grace where the King of Love is – and he’s in our midst. Christ is born by all who bear him – and Christ is within us as we are within him.