Verse for reflection: But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. Matthew 6:17-18 (NIV)
Facing a long weekend of getting ready for a certain medical procedure wherein your insides are fastidiously clean (if you get my drift and you’re of a certain age), is no fun.
But doing so during Lent: what’s not to love? You do the every-ten-year thing, win points with God, and lose weight all in one l-o-n-g weekend.
Right. That’s not what Jesus told his disciples to do nor does it qualify for true sacrificing in anybody’s religion whether you call it Ramadan or Lent. In a church school class for Lent, we’re studying the classic Soul Feast: An Invitation to the Christian Spiritual Life (Marjorie Thompson) regarding spiritual disciplines, and last Sunday looked at the topic of fasting.
I was reminded of the one time I engaged in spiritual fasting for five days. I was in Mennonite Voluntary Service (VS) and was earnestly trying to figure out what I should do next. I lived with five other people in our “unit” house. To escape notice of my fellow VSers, I fasted only over lunch. I could easily arrange to be absent or otherwise engaged over lunch and no one would notice, so I ate breakfast and dinner with the others, but skipped lunch and all snacks in between.
(Goofing off in the kitchen of our unit apartment, about to snitch a bedtime snack. Circa 1970.)
That probably doesn’t sound like true suffering (it wasn’t) but I got hungry enough that my stomach would remind me frequently through the day that I was fasting. And I used those hunger pangs to pray specifically for direction from God as to what I should do when I got out of VS. Perhaps it wasn’t much of a fast, but it was genuine.
The most likely direction was college, but I truly wasn’t sure where I should go, what I should study, or how I would pay for it. This was 1971, before admission deadlines were as stringent as they are today. While I fasted and prayed that week in early spring, I received two strong nudges: a letter from a friend of mine who had enrolled at Eastern Mennonite College (now University) and encouraged me to go there; then a couple days later the financial aid officer from the school called and said I would probably qualify for some pretty strong financial aid. My friend had put him up to it. It looked like pretty clear guidance to me, and I really never looked back. So I went to EMU, had four wonderful years (including one year studying abroad), found good direction for my life’s work, and ended up meeting the man with whom I would share my journey (but that’s a story for another time).
The neatest thing was feeling a very strong connection with God as I prayed, searched, meditated, and tried not to yield to the constant temptation of one of my favorite things: food.
Action. Whatever you’re giving up, or taking on for Lent, keep at it. Sunday—feast day if that’s the way you practice Lent—is coming when you can take a “break” from your discipline for one day. As we recall the sacrifice of Jesus, this is nothing. We don’t “earn” our salvation anyway; it is a pure gift of God. Amen.
Pic 1: Judi Brenneman, unit hostess, demonstrates a craft with the girls club we ran. Pic 2: Watching my nursery school students which I taught three days a week at Talcum Mennonite Church. Pic 3: Here’s proof I played college basketball my first two years: #33. Miriam Mummaw, our coach is beside me.
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My first book, On Troublesome Creek (Herald Press, 1981) is about the year I spent in Voluntary Service near Hazard, Kentucky.
Verse for reflection: Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long. Psalm 119:97
Growing up, I always did my best thinking in the chicken coop (not to mention my worst sibling fight there).
It was a mighty fancy chicken coop in those days (before the trend to lucky free range chickens), and it was pretty mindless work to push your cart down a cement row between cages and gather up the eggs and place them in cardboard egg flats.
The chickens functioned as my therapists: cocking their heads this way and that as I talked earnestly to them about my problems. They looked like they were truly listening. I sometimes ranted, sometimes cried in frustration or joy, and sometimes warbled a song at the top of my lungs. It was a great place to unload.
But it is only in retrospect that I can talk so lovingly about my chicken house therapy. How we hated to gather eggs back then. How Mother must have dreaded the hour to shoo us out to the chicken house twice a day. We were paid a small amount which helped motivate us.
But besides teaching us the value of work and a dollar earned, I now realize how manual, repetitive work contributed to my having time and space to think things out. It was after one of these chicken house “therapy” sessions that I went in our house and found an index card and jotted down what I thought I wanted to be in life—truly not knowing or even imagining how this would ever be possible for me: to be a Christian writer. I was 15.
This is the real card I inscribed that day, saved in a top secret file I call “Weird to keep but interesting.”
Jesus was a carpenter by occupation and I’m thinking that Jesus must have ruminated on his calling and his life as he sanded wood or sawed in his carpenter shop. Did he know what lay ahead for him? I wonder if he ever sneaked back to the shop once he began teaching and preaching, in order to have contemplative time to himself.
Most of us can’t meditate on God’s word all day long as the Psalmist did, but if you do manual work, that can be an advantage. Many of us like working in the garden for that reason—or freezing or canning its produce. Shelling peas or snapping beans is some of the best “mindless” work there is—if you are so fortunate!
Action: Where do you do your best thinking? If you don’t do manual kind of work, take whatever opportunities you have in the day—commuting, walking, running, washing dishes, showering—to focus on a verse of scripture or big questions: your life and where it is headed; your relationships; on God’s provisions for you and how you can respond more faithfully to God’s call; on Jesus’ example and extreme sacrifice as we go through this season of Lent. May we seek clarity, cleansing, self-understanding, and joy.
Chicken photo from FreeFoto.com
Verse for reflection: He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18: 2-4
Children have much to teach us—including on this Lenten journey. Here, in no particular order, are things, both profound and profane, my kids have tried to teach me—or teach their siblings:
~ When I was pregnant with our third child, the oldest saw me reading a book. “Mommy, is that book about pregnancy?”
“No,” I replied. “Why?”
“Well,” she said, like a stern nurse, “you should be reading books about being pregnant.” (Not that I hadn’t had a baby before or anything.)
Michelle feeding baby Doreen
~ It was at the beginning of this same pregnancy that I shared the news with a family of three kids, all of whom had been adopted as foster children. When I excitedly shared the news that we were going to have a new baby, they smiled politely and one asked, “Do you mean foster or adopted?”
~ Big sister to younger sister when she first headed to school: “Don’t forget—a rule at our school is, “Don’t walk out of the bathroom with your pants still down!’”
Tanya looking up to big sister Michelle at school
~ My post last week about digging a well after struggling with a cistern for many years reminded my oldest daughter of how amused my husband and I were upon hearing her leading her two-year-old sister in a game of “check the water in the cistern.” She had leaned over the heavy cement lid, pretending to lift it up like Mommy did, loudly grunting “uh” in the process. Until that instant, I had never realized I always made such a graphic sound when checking the water in the cistern! We howled with laughter.
And I don’t remember now which one of my kids said these:
~ “Mommy, what comes after the New Testament?” Great question.
~ “If you say God doesn’t need to sleep [Psalm 121], why did Genesis say God rested?”
~ “Why don’t they list the mothers?” (after hearing a genealogy from the Bible).
~ “Did God write the Bible?”
And sometimes it is not so much something they say that prompts chuckles or a lump in the throat, but an action: a tissue brought for a crying sibling; a Cheerio shared with the family dog.
Tanya holding out a Cheerio to dog Wendy
If we think of children coming to us fresh from the hand of God, I don’t think it is too far-fetched to let their words—profound or embarrassing—speak to us. Children will humble us, like Jesus said, enabling us to enter the kingdom of heaven.
Action: If you have children or grandchildren around, allow them to lead you closer to God. If you don’t have any around, enjoy looking at some photo albums (like I’ve been) today. Call, email or text the special children in your life, whether your own or a friend’s.
Verse for reflection: In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Desert of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” Matthew 3: 1-2
At our office we used to have a cactus plant that bloomed about three or four times a year. Normally I’m not a big fan of cacti, but there was something about this particular plant’s blooming that always caught my imagination. I don’t know the name, but it was more similar to this video than my photo below of a simple thistle blooming (which is awesome for a weed!).
The feathery bloom on the plant in our office lunchroom was as delicate as any orchid (in fact some people call it an orchid cactus), and lasted only one day. It would burst open one morning and by evening was limp: exhausted and spent from its one brief day of shining.
One morning I came to work to find it was the cactus’ day to bloom. But the flowers were squashed up against the window with no room to spread out. So I turned the planter around and watched the flowers unfold more fully. I imagined them thanking me for not having to spend their one day of glory bent up and miserable.
It made me think of a man I knew, who in a sense spent his life turned in the wrong direction because of forces beyond his control when he was a child. I always felt he was damaged by a warped childhood, with no one to turn him around enough to say, “Look at life from this side now. You don’t have to wallow in the circumstances of your birth. You’re free to become better than you’ve ever been before, given room to stretch and bloom.”
That can be the experience we have on our Lenten journey. We don’t have to spend another day mashed up and unable to blossom. Sometimes it takes the help or assistance of another person to turn us around. Sometimes our own squirming and searching gets us into a position where we can bloom the way God intended. John the Baptist preached about repentance, turning around.
Action: In what way could I use a fresh angle—turn around to look at my life another way?
Verse for reflection: But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. Psalm 131:2
One time when the two youngest were six and three, I had to stay home with the children who had flu and strep throat. They were sick, but not too sick to want to play “office” with Mommy.
Suddenly I found myself with two pint-sized bosses. One was far tougher, and the other way more lenient than any real life-bosses I’ve encountered.
Six-year-old: “Now, I want you to finish an article for the paper today.” (She hands me a blank page and I decide to write down our conversation so she’ll think I’m “writing.”)
Me: “Today?”
“Yes, today. Start writing.”
Shortly three-year-old arrives with a play lunch of plastic food. “Ta da! Lunch!”
“Oh, lunch already?”
“Yes, I put ketchup and mustard on it.”
“Oh, (chuckle) yes! I heard you going ‘plop plop.’”
Six-year-old: “This is your lunch break.”
I take two pretend bites. Six-year-old: “Okay, start writing again.”
“Hey! That was a short break.”
(Relenting.) “Well, you’ll have another break later.”
Three-year-old returns with a plastic Big Mac box, hiding a smile. “Here’s your break. You won’t like it.” (Giggle.)
I open the box. Instead of a hamburger, she has tucked inside a treat like you get with a fast food kid’s meal. “Oh, you gave me a Happy Meal!”
She grins her delight.
Six-year-old. “Now hand your paper to me when you’re finished. I’ve drawn a picture to go with it.” …
And once again I was grateful to step inside my children’s world, even if it took a sick day to do it. It’s always a revelation to hear kids playing back to us what they’ve caught from our work world.
I chose a mommy track when I cut back my full time job to half time, a decision I never regretted. My boss may have raised an occasional eyebrow when I had to stay home with sick kids, but it was a choice I tried to make whenever possible. It meant cutting back on travel for the company, not doing much overtime or evening meetings. I didn’t pursue grad school because it would have meant uprooting the family. I was clearly on the parent track.
Stepping off the career track is a good thing, especially during this season of Lent. There are many images of God in the Bible as a parent, or loving mother hen, as our pastor read in the Lectionary passage yesterday. God IS a parent, and parenting–or loving the children in our lives–can be one more picture to help us understand a little more fully God’s wide and all embracing love for us.
Action: Today’s verse speaks of a still and quiet soul. There are many tasks facing us on Mondays, but this season reminds us to take time to be quiet and still. Even just for ten minutes.
Verse for reflection: “You know what I am going to say even before I say it.” Psalm 139:4
I’ve enjoyed helping interview people for the documentaries Mennonite Media (now MennoMedia) produced. This true story happened to another producer, who was interviewing an elderly woman whose husband had been murdered several months earlier in an apparently random shooting. The conversation was all recorded in the transcript.
“Do you remember your feelings during that period?” the producer asked, innocently pursuing the most relevant part of the story.
“Wait a minute,” Mrs. Todd (not her real name) protested. “I wanted to tell you about our marriage before we got to this part. You got the book backward! You’re asking me about his death, and you never thought to ask me about our lives together.”
Ouch. To his credit, at that point the interviewer backed up and listened to a grieving woman remember her life with a wonderful husband. I’ve tried to follow this principle when interviewing people for articles, radio programs and films.
How often do we tell people, by our attention or lack of it, “Just get on with the story; spare me the details.”
Yes, there is an art to summarizing a story instead of getting lost in irrelevant details, but how important it is to listen—really listen—to a spouse, a child, or a friend when they need to unload—with details. I’ve very guilty of this, especially at home.
I took a still-life oil painting class for a year. My teacher was always telling us, “Squint, squint, squint! You have to squint to really see the exact shades of red on an apple, the precise gleam on an oil lamp. You won’t be a good painter if you don’t squint!”
We also need to “squint” when we’re listening to someone. Figuratively in thus case: focusing totally on the other person and blocking out all the busy issues crowding my mind. The person can tell if we are listening with “squinting” ears.
This Lenten journey, perhaps we can think of God listening to us with “squinting” ears, and revel in God’s availability to us. It is important to listen to God, too, but today bask in the presence of a listening God. Our God is totally unbound by the human constraints of time, energy, boredom, the next task.
Action: Made in the image of God, we humans have similar capacities to be good listeners when others need to share their hearts. When someone—child, spouse, friend—shares with you today, give them your full attention.
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Photo by Wayne Gehman for Mennonite Media, from the production of Shadow Voices: Finding Hope in Mental Illness. Pictured are Lyn Legere and Denver Steiner, listening to a young man in a peer-to-peer listening session. Lyn’s story is told in Shadow Voices and her struggles with cigarette addiction finally made it into a radio spot you can find here.
Most of these Lenten meditations, appearing Monday through Friday are adapted and excerpted from my book, Why Didn’t I Just Raise Radishes: Finding God in the Everyday, Herald Press, 1994.
Verse for reflection: For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Romans 12:3
Caffeine used to be one of my major vices. I would get up, grope for my slippers, and soon pump fresh caffeine into my veins. Was I any different from the heroin addict, except that what I did was legal?
When one of our children was about fifteen months old and struggling to give up her bottle, I chuckled as I watched a grown man nurse a beer bottle with two hands one day at an archery competition. He looked so much like my toddler, attached to his security. Then in a flash I saw myself walking around the office or at home, coffee cup clutched between two hands.
I’ve now given up the caffeine part (makes mammograms hurt less and I don’t get caffeine withdrawal headaches anymore) but still, getting that first cup of decaf coffee in the morning is a great motivator for getting out of bed.
I recently heard Dr. Brian Kelley, a psychology professor who has done much research on substance abuse say that cigarette addiction is so powerful because so much of the habit is associated with certain activities. You get up in the morning, you have to have your smoke. You drive to work, you go on break, you have lunch—all tied to the Vise (yes I mean that spelling) grip of the cigarette.
Whatever you’ve given up for Lent, Day 9 can be a tough time. The newness has worn off; your commitment is wearing thin. There are still 31 days to go. You are just so hungry for ____ (fill in the blank). You’ll just sneak on Facebook to catch this or that meditation. You’ll just watch that mindless 30 minute TV show. You deserve it. You aren’t on a quest to survive 40 days in the wilderness, after all; who but you will care if you cheat on your crazy “sacrifice” this year.
Jesus had those temptations and more. Who but Jesus and God would know the outcome of the mind games Jesus played with the tempter.
We have much worse temptations and vices. Pride. Vanity. Thinking disparaging thoughts about our loved ones and friends—let alone our enemies. Hanging strong through Lent can give us the mental stamina to put aside the vices that really matter.
What can I learn from my own weaknesses which will help me be more understanding of others? How can I live a lifestyle that is healthy and pleasing to God?
Action: Every time you are “tempted” today to indulge in what you’ve give up, or to not practice the discipline you began at the start of Lent, say what Jesus ended up telling his tempter: “Away from me. I will worship the Lord my God.”
Verse for reflection: For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants. Isaiah 44:4
The first home my husband and I owned had a cistern as its only water supply—very common in these parts of Virginia. But after living with it for six-seven years and enduring more waterless weekends than I’d like to remember (when we’d forgotten to order water from the water hauler and were too thrifty to pay the extra fee for weekend delivery), and with two children and hoping for a third, we were finally ready to dig our own well.
My husband was hoping to hit water by 250 feet but pessimistically predicted 500 feet at the most.
By the time we hit 600 feet, co-workers’ jokes about oil and China were getting stale. We begged the driller to try another hole, but he wanted to keep on where he was. As the droning rig tore ever further into our front yard, the incessant noise became a corkscrew impaling not only our budget but our nerves.
I read about Jacob’s well-digging ventures in the Old Testament and suddenly felt a new respect for his patience with the well robbers (Gen 26:17-22).
But I didn’t feel right praying that we’d find water. That seemed like praying for a boy or a girl after the baby’s already been conceived. Enough faith may move mountains, but I didn’t want to worry the Almighty about personal stream moving. Yet I did pray for patience to survive frayed nerves, and peace not to worry about our stretched budget.
We drilled all the way to 925 feet. And finally we had water, almost twice as far as our most pessimistic prediction. To my family members who live in Indiana where 30- to 90 foot wells are the norm, 925 feet deep went beyond ridiculous to ludicrous. How would we ever pay for it?
My husband talked to the contractor who agreed to charge us for only 580 feet—the depth where we had urged him to try another hole. God hadn’t moved a stream but maybe had softened a contractor’s heart in compassion for a young, struggling family.
We celebrated like we were in some far-off country drinking from a newly dug village well. All over the world, so many walk many miles every day to obtain water. I vowed I would never take water for granted again.
But of course I do. But for this day of Lent, every time you turn on a tap or take a drink of water today, think of persons walking miles for their water. Think of the woman at the well in Samaria who met Jesus and found not only water, but a new source of life.
Action: Thank God for your access to water—and to eternal life flowing from God, the giver of water—and life.
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See more on one Water project in Benin, and a book with gorgeous photography related to that project check here.
Verse for Reflection: Everyone who drink this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give … will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give … will become a spring of water welling up to eternal life. John 4:13-14
One person who decided to try the “ten minutes of doing nothing” discipline for Lent (which I mentioned on Ash Wednesday) said, “You know what ten minutes of doing nothing reminds me of? The time outs we used to do when we were kids.”
Oh yes. Time out as a “discipline”—a form of punishment. I had not thought of that when I suggested it, taken from my pastor’s meditation that day.
And that is what is wrong with our approach to many of the classic disciplines. Fasting. Praying. Giving up smoking. Somehow Lent sometimes feel like punishment—because we’ve been bad. We’re bad because we don’t live a sacrificial life all year long.
Somehow I don’t think spiritual disciplines are supposed to be like that.
When Jesus went to the wilderness for 40 days, he did not go as punishment. He went seeking … something more from God. Seeking to gather strength for the journey ahead—the launch of his ministry. The mission of three years of giving himself, and then, ultimately, giving up his very life, in the end. I don’t think he really knew what lay ahead. So his 40 days in the wilderness was a journey to get closer to God, discover the path God had for him.
And that is how the ten minutes of “doing nothing” or time out, or meditation, (or giving up coffee or French fries should be approached).
As a purposeful ten minutes of being quiet and still (or, if you giving up something, the urges and temptation for whatever you’ve given up can be a reminder of the need to stay in connection to God).
My pastor also talked about renewing strength like an eagle. Maybe we can approach the ten minutes of doing nothing like a recharging of the battery. Like with your cell phone.
Does that help? Power up! A spring of water welling up to eternal life.
Action: In your meditation time today, think of it as the most exciting gift you can give yourself all day. It is a banquet. A hike to the top of a mountain. A chance to listen to the waves roll in at the shore. It is a wondrous place you can come to at any time.
Verse for reflection: But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. Luke 2:19
Usually we read this verse in conjunction with the Christmas story. I’ve always been so glad for this postscript and window into Mary’s heart. But it is a great verse for Lent, and living more mindfully or purposefully.
When our youngest was just a toddler, my parents came to visit and together we went to Chincoteague barrier island off the coast of Virginia for a few days. We made the trip in a trusty circa 1979 Plymouth station wagon, packing my father’s wheel chair, a walker, a car seat and assorted paraphernalia for a beach vacation for four adults and three children. Some of our gear was stored in one of those Turtle-type toppers on the wagon.
Our daughters dutifully washing the wagon before the trip with Grandpa and Grandma.
On the way home, we needed to drop my parents off at the airport on a Sunday morning. We had a short devotional/worship time in the car as we drove. My parents weren’t pious Joes, but anytime we traveled on Sunday as a family when I was growing up, we usually tracked down a church to visit. Or if not that, at least we had “devotions” at the motel or campsite. So they tried to teach and live that one’s faith never took a vacation.
After our little worship service, we spied a roadside fruit stand in eastern Maryland—really just a flatbed hay wagon piled up with watermelons. A crude sign announced “3 melons for $1.” They were huge melons and the bargain was too good to pass up, so we stopped. We stewed awhile over which ones to pick, and also how to fit them in our overloaded station wagon, and ended up taking one or two out and replacing them with smaller melons that fit our space. We paid our dollar and continued on, now a little worried about making it to the airport on time.
Soon a police car pulled us over! My husband went into panic mode and was sure he had failed to stop for a light or had maybe been speeding. But no, the cop, sheepishly, said he had been informed that someone thought we had stolen some watermelons. He said he’d gotten a call from the roadside stand saying we had put more than three melons in our car.
At that point my husband fell over himself in relief explaining how we had put some in, and then out, and officer, you can search this car all over but we only have three watermelons in it. He showed him one at the feet of one child, and then offered to open the Turtle topper to show him the other two. As the officer peered at our walker, grandparents and children (with my mother muttering in the background about how we weren’t crooks, we’d just had a worship service, for crying out loud) suddenly the officer waved his hand and said something like “That’s alright. I think you’re telling the truth” and waved us on, also probably deciding he had better things to do than chase down anyone accused of stealing something worth 33 cents.
This is now one of our favorite vacation stories and if you trade cop or vacation stories with my family for very long, you will probably hear it, with more or less embellishment, depending on who’s telling it. My mother treasures the worship service we had on the road. My kids remember being squished in the station wagon, but basking in the attention of doting grandparents. My husband recalls the gratitude that washed over him when he discovered he was “only” being stopped as a suspect in a highway robbery. I ponder all these things, remembering my parents’ strong value of always taking time to remember the Lord’s day, no matter where you are.
Which gets us back to Lent and the reminder from Mary as she contemplated all the events of Jesus’ birth. If we are to “keep a holy Lent” as the pastor reminds us, surely the mundane details or even wild surprises, are worthy of mulling, worthy of finding the God moments in every day. It’s a reminder to us to do likewise with the everyday experiences of our lives.
Action: Take time at the end of the day to ponder where you saw God. Were there any surprises? Or perhaps your day did not go so well. Focus on the love and devotion your heavenly parent extends to you. Share a comment if you wish.
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This Lenten series runs Monday through Friday. I invite you to join me on this journey through Lent (if you sign up to follow this blog it will be easier). As a thank you, I can send you a FREE booklet I wrote several years ago, 14 Days to a Better You, which is a look at the classic 7 Vices and 7 Virtues. It’s more fun than it sounds. No obligation—just my way of connecting with blog followers a little better. Leave a comment and I’ll be able to see your email and follow up.
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