| Notes, Reflections and Prayers from the Rev. Canon Brian Cole |
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This Lent, I am using a small devotional book entitled, Following Christ: A Lenten Reader to Stretch your Soul, as a guide for navigating these 40 days. The author is Carmen Acevedo Butcher, who has compiled wisdom from the Christian tradition on waiting and praying and renewal. In Butcher’s introduction to her devotional guide, she mentions a quote from Thomas Merton on the power of meditating and reflecting slowly on scripture—“Any serious reading of the Bible means personal involvement in it, not simple mental agreement with abstract propositions. And involvement is dangerous, because it lays one open to unforeseen conclusions.” Lent is a dangerous time. It is dangerous, not because you need to take on or give up some practice in your life that puts your life at risk, but because it is a season that invites true engagement, an embodiment of our faith lived out in our ordinary lives. It is not a time for more faith talk that never encounters the heart. In college, I took a course on Music Appreciation. It, like many classes with such a focus, enabled me to know enough about music to carry on small talk at parties. The appreciation came with several filters and was less an experience and more a Cliff Notes version to beauty. Lent is not a time to do Christian Appreciation. This is not a Cliff Notes season on what Christians do or how those religious folk behave. This is a season for jumping in, for being your own faith journey now. Who knows what we will find on the other side of Lent? Like many of you, I pray the other side of Lent will be warmer with less snow and multiple signs that spring is approaching. Other than that, we cannot know. In the not knowing, however, the Christ knows of our quest, our journey, our desire to experience the next thing God has for us. Peace, |