LENT
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GOD IS IN THE DETAILS
My whole upbringing was deficient in the things of Lent. As a kid I thought Lent was a little white fleck on your dark clothes after mom washed them. My Catholic and Episcopalian friends tried unsuccessfully to tell my unsophisticated mind what Lent was all about, and without success. All they could tell me about was what they had to "give up." Their list made me glad I was Protestant. I can still smell the awful odor of fish in the cafeteria on Friday and became convinced that the Protestant God I worshipped got higher marks for not making me eat that stuff.
Now the Protestant traditions have run to restore some things they dumped 500 years ago, Lent being among them. Protestants have realized that there may have been a baby dumped with the bathwater of the Protestant Reformation.
Catholic and Protestant alike are talking about Lent being a time "not that you give something up, but that you take something up." That sounds cute and user‑friendly until you read a little more of Jesus 101 and discover that what HE calls us to take up is "a cross." Having looked at His cross and with all the publicity of Mel Gibson’s movie, “The Passion”, we yearn for this season to be over before it begins! Bring on the lilies! Who needs this self‑examination and introspection and quiet anyway? We know it's going to end OK, so let's forget the examination part! Who needs it?
We do. That's who. We are so entrenched in "doing" that we compound our doing to the point of our undoing. Anytime we are just "being" we immediately feel that we must explain why we have not filled every moment with trivia, accomplishment or yard work. I believe that God comes to us when undoing and doing are in balance. Prayer and meditation are the symbolic places where we find that balance.
Lent is a time that we choose a path that will remind us of this central truth: "God is in the details." God is in the seemingly small and unnoticed things that happen daily while no one is looking and we are not noticing.
Lent takes notice
May each of us learn to take notice during this Lenten journey.
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Lynnewood United Methodist Church
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