U-Turns: 22 February 2009

Dear Friends,

As I write today, winter has taken a U-Turn. Just last week we experienced a taste of spring: temperatures into the 40’s and even 50’s for a few days, green winter wheat beginning to grow in the fields, a rapid melting of the mounds of snow, increasing emergence and movement of wildlife. But today nature has proven it still is winter by providing us with yet another round of snow, and blowing and drifting too. And I sigh as I ponder U- Turns and wonder if a going back or a turning back is a fruitful or live-giving thing to do. It depends. Does our turning back mean a return to rigidity and more of the same? Or does a turning back offer us an opportunity to dream a new path for the future?

In a few short days the Christian season of Lent will be upon us. It is a time when many of us have become accustomed to reflect on our sinfulness and give up something in order to make restitution to God. As children we may have given up candy; as adults we are obligated to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday and to give up eating meat on Fridays. Some of us may give up other things or habits only to return to them once Lent is past. We may pride ourselves on how good we are in sticking to our Lenten resolve to deny ourselves a pleasure or two (or three). And yet, in the end, when Lent has passed, what have we accomplished? Have we moved closer to the Sacred? On Ash Wednesday we will hear the scripture plea to return to the Lord “with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning” (Joel 2:12). And there are some who will make a U-Turn into the “good old days” of the past by dwelling only on the fasting and weeping and mourning of Lent (or life), believing that personal denial and/or suffering is our only “ticket” to salvation. I think there’s more...I think there’s another U-Turn to take.

If we’ve taken the risk to enter into the depths of our hearts and have discovered even amid and among the silence and darkness the presence of the Sacred abides within, we have begun to make the U-Turn of turning back to or toward all that is holy and life-giving. Doing so allows us to dream new dreams, to vision possibilities for life and love, notice ways to better live in communion with each other and the world, to believe in God’s promise “See, I am doing something new!” (Isaiah 43:19) Taking that risky leap into our deep within, we are able to find something new in and for us; something new in our relationship with the Sacred. Now, isn’t that the point of Lent – to move us toward newness?

Peace on the Journey