The 4th Thursday in Lent, February 28, 2008

Become the change you want to see in the world.

~ Mahatma Gandhi

It is easy to expect others to change, but real change is something that takes place within each of us as we begin to take responsibility for our own journey. We have very little power over changing others. But as we grow and journey we may become the kind of examples who inspire others to do the same.

The 4th Wednesday in Lent, February 27, 2008

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit. 

~ Aristotle

And what we do "religiously," that is, regularly and repeatedly, is our religion.  Faith is a distinctive lifestyle, something we practice and live. 

During Lent we are reminded to to take time to practice our faith. And while practice may not make perfect, it does make disciples. So may you practice your faith and welcome life-giving habits of the heart.

The 3rd Tuesday in Lent, February 26, 2008

Prayer is not flight. It is power.

Prayer does not deliver a person from some terrible situation;

it enables the person to face and overcome the situation.

~ William Barclay

There are things we can change and things we cannot change. Often we have no power of the situations and people in our lives. But we do have power over our attitude. Prayer can marshal those powers and help us to deal positively, creatively and faithfully with our lives. May you welcome the power of prayer today.

The 3rd Monday in Lent, February 25, 2008

It is difficult to make a person miserable who feels a kindred spirit to the great God who made him.

~ Abraham Lincoln 

President Lincoln knew more than his share of loss and difficulty in life, so the quote for today comes from a real place of experience and testing. Indeed, our faith, our sense that we connected to God is a great consolation in life. Our faith journey is to cultivate that connection and allow that recognition of spiritual kinship to grow in us and others.

The 3rd Thursday in Lent, February 21, 2008

Your friends love you anyway.

~ Dave Barry

We all make mistakes and have flaws. Lent is a time to accept this fact about ourselves and others. We need to forgive ourselves and others when we fall short. "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." 

The 3rd Wednesday in Lent, February 20, 2008

God who governed the world before I was born

shall take care of it when I am gone.
My part is to improve the present moment.
~ John Wesley

The big picture is in God's hands. We are called to do our part to give to the present moment. If we attend to the moment at hand and let go of the bigger picture we are both more faithful and more effective.

The 2nd Tuesday in Lent, February 19, 2008

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

~ Jesus (Matthew 5:48)

How is God most perfect? God is most perfect in love. 

The perfection we ought to pursue is to love as God loves. Most other searches for perfection easily lead to self-righteousness. But striving to love as God loves bring out the very best in us.

The 2nd Thursday in Lent, February 14, 2008

Sometimes there would be a rush of noisy visitors and the Silence of the monastery would be shattered. This would upset the disciples; not the Master, who seemed just as content with the noise as with the Silence.

To his protesting disciples he said one day, "Silence is not the absence of sound, but the absence of self." 

~ Anthony de Mello

Lent is not the absence of things that we ought to give up, but rather the absence of our need to have things our way. Letting go of our compulsions we welcoming the silence and peace Christ offers us is a gift of this season. May you welcome the deeper silence that can even be heard in the noise of daily life.

February 13, 2008, the 2nd Wednesday in Lent

It is so much easier to tell others how to handle their problems

than to simply stand with them in their pain.

Our job is not to fix others but to simply be with them. Often words are inadequate in the face of real problems, so it's not so much what you say, but that you are present that matters. 

The 1st Tuesday in Lent, February 12, 2008

Half of our trouble comes from wanting our way;

The other half comes from having it.

The perfect prayer for Lent was uttered by Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, when he faced the full reality of the cross and said, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want."

Asking what God wants for you is a good question. Praying "not what I want but what you want," is a prayer that can temper our wanting so much. Perhaps if we want this one thing, we will have the peace that comes from letting go and trusting God more fully. We may never do it as perfectly as we might think we ought, but that should not stop us from taking one step today in wanting what God wants.

The 1st Monday in Lent, February 11, 2008

The Christian community does not exist for itself; it exists for the Gospel.

~ Karl Barth

In our world of "what have you done for me lately?," we often forget that the church is not here just to meet our individual needs. Our church is not to be just want we want. It is to be a self-sacrificial community giving itself for the sake of the Gospel. It called to be a community of generous spirit that exists to share the grace of God with the world. 

During the season of Lent each of us is called to allow this self-giving spirit to be our reason for expressing our faith through our church. As we welcome this spirit we will know that "Christ is Risen, indeed."

The 1st Thursday in Lent, February 7, 2008

The spiritual quest is not for interesting "spiritual experiences" but for the expansion of our capacity for mercy, the opening of our hearts wide enough to embrace the world, and not just the fragments of it, here and there, which at present we manage to feel with and care about. 

~ Martin L. Smith

And this season of Lent, which began yesterday, is not just about "spiritual experiences" either. It is about the renewal of our lives. It is for expanding the circle of our concern and knowing God's love for all creation. What ever do, what ever we give up that facilitates this growth is the gift of Lent. If we can welcome this time of growth we will know, in our lives, the words we say at Easter, that "Christ is risen."

Ash Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Human kind cannot bear very much reality.

~ T. S. Eliot

"From ashes we have come to ashes we will return." This is a reality that we do not like to remember. Yet on Ash Wednesday we confront our mortality. If that causes us to see each day as a gift, not owed to us, it is a step on the road to new life. Indeed, Easter begins today, as we start Lent by coming face to face with our limits and brokenness. If our death and weakness leads us to turn to Christ and each other, today is the beginning of our resurrection.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Ash Wednesday is the gateway to Lent. We have forty precious days to open ourselves up most particularly to God, to examine ourselves in the presence of one who created us, knows us, and loves us. We have forty days to face ourselves and learn to not be afraid of our sinfulness. We are dust, and to dust we shall return, but with God's grace we can learn to live this life more fully, embracing our sinfulness, allowing God to transform us.

~ Rev. Margaret Jones

We do not often hear someone urging us to "embrace our sinfulness." But the wisdom that today's quote calls us to is a realistic sense of who and what we are. We are not prefect, we are creatures of dust, full of frailties and prone to failure. That being the case, we ask God to work in us and to transform us. Perfection is beyond us. But we are nevertheless loved and known by the perfect love of God.

(Please join us for Ash Wednesday service at 7:30 p.m.) 

Monday, February 4, 2008

Friends are angels who lift us to our feet

when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly.

We all have wings that are forgetful sometimes. Maybe it's from a serious loss in our lives or even from a smaller concern (like 18-1). But for whatever reason, friends are the ones who let us know we are not alone, that life goes on, and that life is good. So be that kind of friend to another today and be grateful for your angels!