Secret Spirituality

Repentance.  When Lu Lobello returned from active duty in Iraq, he was haunted by the memory of one particular incident.  Early in the takeover of Baghdad, his marine unit had shot up a suspicious car that turned out to contain civillians,the Kachadoorian family. Only the mother and a daughter survived, all the men were killed.  Lobello was discharged from the Marines due to actions related to his suffering from PTSD.  He eventually researched what happened to the survivors in the Kachadoorian family.  They had moved to California and lived not far from Lobello.  Through a reporter who had written about the Kachadoorians, a meeting was arranged.  The conversation was awkward, but the mother and daughter, both Arminian Christians, told Lobello that they forgave him and welcomed him as a son and brother.(Excerpted from Christian Century, February 6, 2013.

He sought them out.  Why?  We don’t know why.  I suspect, at least, he was sorry, ashamed, suffering under the weight of guilt.  They gave him a gift.  They released him from the self-affliction of guilt and they welcomed him as a member of their family.  In Christian love, he became to them like the ones he had taken from them.  Love keeps no record of wrongs.   

praying

Lord Jesus, teach us how to pray.  Amen. 

Lake George from Inspiration Pt.

My family loves the Adirondack mountains.  It is our place for retreat twice a year. We hike to this place; inspiration point.  It’s not a hard climb, takes 45 minutes to get up there.  But the view is awesome.  On a beautiful spring day, we can sit up there for an hour in complete silence. Serenity, beauty, fresh air, Lake George, peace.  It is our semi-annual high.  It energizes us, brings clarity of thought, reduces stress and anxiety, and gives us time together in God’s presence. We are free to be.  It’s never hard to go there, always hard to leave. I often say I could live there.  Retire there one day.  Buy a cabin. Sit on the porch. It’s a dream.  If you have a place like this, you know what I mean.  If you don’t, I recommend you find one.        

One of the recurring themes in Luke’s story about Jesus and his disciples is the theme of prayer.  It is mentioned more than in the other gospels.  In major scenes, Jesus prays:  At his baptism.  Before he chooses the 12 disciples, on the mountain, and on the cross.  Jesus prays.  He tells a parable, only found in Luke’s story, about a friend who knocks on a friends’ door at midnight, seeking some bread so that he might offer food to a guest who has come to his house.  Prayer, he says, is like asking a friend, at an inopportune time, to give you a gift so that you might give that gift to someone else.  Prayer is like obtaining food for someone else.  Prayer is like being in between someone who has what someone else needs.  Prayer is a point of access.  Prayer is advocacy, speaking up for someone else, being their voice.  Prayer is inconvenient, too.  It is the midnight cry in a crisis moment.  It is the “sorry to have to bother you with this, but…”  Prayer is, “I need your help, so that I can help someone else.”  It’s knowing where to turn in a moment of need.  It’s knocking on the door.  Prayer is not relaxing meditation apart from the world on inspiration point.  It is an action verb. It is movement. It is an intervention, a confrontation.  

Many of us pray.  In times of trouble, need, confusion, fear, grief.  We pray for help.  And in times of joy, celebration, and blessing we pray in thanksgiving.  I suspect we have been taught to pray at meals, maybe at bedtime, less likely in the morning.  Maybe you have a few prayers memorized.  Maybe you fold your hands and bow your head and kneel at your bedside.  Maybe you pray out loud, alone in your car.  Maybe you just don’t pray.  If God is God, doesn’t God already know what I’m going to say, what I’m thinking?  What’s the point?  Prayer can seem passive, verbal, cerebral—in my head. Prayer is sort of nice, but not messy or dangerous. We don’t think of prayer as risk.  We think of it as duty or comfort. 

Lent begins Wednesday. So, it’s Confession time. I’m not sure about prayer in my own life. I don’t know if I pray enough. I keep trying.  Prayer sometimes feels more like a chore or duty and something I skip or forget to do. I rarely know for certain that a prayer I prayed is answered.  I don’t even try to make those connections. I have been a student of prayer for a long time. I’ve read about prayer, talked and taught about prayer, practiced various kinds of praying.  I’m not sure I understand it much better than when I was a child, though.  Is it effective? If not, is that a reflection on me or God?   I’m still learning. Sometimes prayer has been intimate and profound, spiritually energizing, exciting. I have prayed in groups, with a partner, on behalf of one person or many people.  I have prayed in front of large crowds and in a small, dark, silent space.  Pastors  are invited to and expected to pray.  But I don’t always have the words. 

Psalm 51. for Lent

Have mercy on me, O God,

according to your steadfast love;

according to your abundant mercy

blot out my transgressions. 

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,

and cleanse me from my sin. 

For I know my transgressions,

and my sin is ever before me. 

Against you, you alone, have I sinned,

and done what is evil in your sight,

so that you are justified in your sentence

and blameless when you pass judgement. 

Indeed, I was born guilty,

a sinner when my mother conceived me. 

You desire truth in the inward being;

therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. 

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;

wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 

Let me hear joy and gladness;

let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. 

Hide your face from my sins,

and blot out all my iniquities. 

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

and put a new and right spirit within me. 

Do not cast me away from your presence,

and do not take your holy spirit from me. 

Restore to me the joy of your salvation,

and sustain in me a willing spirit. 

Then I will teach transgressors your ways,

and sinners will return to you. 

Deliver me from bloodshed, O God,

O God of my salvation,

and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance. 

O Lord, open my lips,

and my mouth will declare your praise. 

For you have no delight in sacrifice;

if I were to give a burnt-offering, you would not be pleased. 

The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit;

a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. 

Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;

rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, 

then you will delight in right sacrifices,

in burnt-offerings and whole burnt-offerings;

then bulls will be offered on your altar.

forty days.

Lent is forty days.  Seven weeks. It starts tomorrow, Ash Wednesday.  It ends on the night before Easter. But you don't count Sundays. Every Sunday is a little celebration of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. So, Sunday is always a feast day.  Christians don't fast on Sundays.  Ash Wednesday falls in a different week every year, because Easter moves.  Easter is determined by the lunar calendar; it falls on the First Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox.  Winter's darkness is coming to an end. Life and light return.  
Ash Wednesday is not about cigarettes, but you might quit smoking.  One of the disciplines of Lent is fasting; abstaining or giving up certain habits, foods, etc...Discipline is hard.  If it weren't, it wouldn't take discipline. Ash Wednesday is the ritual marking of the forehead with ashes in the sign of the cross.  It symbolizes our mortality, our creaturehood, that we were all "made from the dust" and will one day return to the dust of the earth. It is good to know this. Transiency and mortality means today is the day. Seize it. Live today as if it could be your last or most important.
Ash Wednesday is also a visible reminder that there is dirty, black darkness---sin---in our hearts and minds, in the world. We make a mess of things. Every now and again I need to be reminded that I am not just a good person trying to live a good life.  I benefit all the time from many privileges that I take for granted; from my skin color to my education, I have received good things that others have not.  Not by my own doing.  I am not self-made. Also, I take advantage of those privileges in ways that negatively affect others, in ways that are too often hidden from me.  I have money to buy things I don't need, while my neighbor does not have enough money for heat,food, or shelter. I should try and rectify that in some way. A bible word related to Lent is "to repent", a verb which has to do with self-transformation, changing directions, turning around. Sometimes, we need a do-over, a second change, a U-turn.  Lent is a reboot, a fresh start.  
Also, Ash Wednesday remembers the cross.  Jesus died.  God died with him. But life continues. Because death is not final. It need not condition the way we live. We are not the walking dead.  We are alive with potential for goodness and love. We can avoid destructive, toxic things and embrace life-giving things.  
So, for forty days Christians reflect on what it means to be a creature in the world.  They do so in physical ways.  Because for Christians, being spiritual is a physical experience.  We connect to God, not through transcendental meditation, but through physical means. And that is what Lent is about; restoring a connection with God. God, according to the bible, loves us. We call  relationship with God communion.  A lot of Christians observe Ash Wednesday with a service of worship. You could go.  Many churches welcome guests, especially for Lent. Whether you attend or not, here are forty ways to do Lent and restore communion with God and others.