Discipline

That is the title of the chapter that I read this morning in The Breath of the Soul by John Chittister.  This little book has been part of my library for years and I decided to re read it for Lent this year.

The discipline that she writes of is the intentionality of putting God in the center of our lives.  Or another way of saying it - it is the discipline of daily prayer.  She writes:

The fact is that we become what we think about.  What we seed in our souls grows in us, becomes what drives us from moment to moment.

I told a friend recently that if I don't engage in morning prayer, my whole day reflects that.  It is in my time with God in the morning - usually with the "Pray as you go" app - that I am able to center myself on Gd's presence, God's love and God's call upon my life.  Otherwise, the news will take me down a path of despair or cynicism or I can fall into allowing resentment or anger to fester within me.

So today I hear that I am called to be HOLY - set apart in my behavior and my thoughts.  As I listen this morning I learn again that this WAY of following Jesus is a series of choices.  I choose to spend time with God, I choose to pray, I choose to allow God's word to seep into my soul.  I choose the path of compassion and love and service.  Again today.

This is what discipline looks like.  This is what it means to be a Disciple of Christ.

May God's HOLY LIGHT be with you, 

shedding God's radiance upon your everyday.

May you perceive your life in a new way, revealed in the light of God's love and desire for you.

May this God light up the hidden places of your life where visions and posssibilities dwell.

May those visions give birth to peace and justice in the world.

May God, HOLY LIGHT, be with you.

Amen

Ash Wednesday and Lent

Today is the first full day of Lent - yesterday was Ash Wednesday.  At our church we had people "drive by" to receive their ashes.  I was so blessed to get to help with that.  I love putting the sign of the cross on the forehead of a person and say to them - in some form or fashion - Jesus Loves YOU. The ritual can have such a deep meaning that goes beyond the mere act - even in a car on the way to shopping.  God shows up.

So today marks the beginning of the 40 day journey to the cross and then to the celebration of Easter. As I sit here I realize that I need to have some intentional act that might anchor me during these days.  It is so easy to be distracted and "too busy" to focus on a regular basis.  My life experience tells me that spiritual disciplines - practices - really can make a difference.

My prayer practice for the last year has been to begin the day sitting with journal in hand and just writing in response to the events of my life. It is prayer with a pen as my sense is that God and I are looking together at what has been happening to me, through me, and in me.  And I write - most often prayers of gratitude and prayers for guidance.  Then I listen to the app "Pray as you Go" and continue to write and wonder and be with God.

During Lent I will add time with Joan Chittister in her little book - The Breath of the Soul: Reflections on Prayer.  I remember spending time with this book about 15 years ago and will - during this season revisit it again.  And allow it to speak to me.  There are 42 chapters in it which will surely take me through this holy season.

The first chapter is called "Self Knowledge" and she writes about how we must bring all of ourselves to God in prayer.

" the temptation with which we must grapple if we really want to learn to pray is \the temptation to pray as if we were more than we are.  More pious,. perhaps, More accepting of the will of god, maybe.  More ethereal in our concerns.  more otherworldly, more a citizen of the next world that a pilgrim in this one. 

But when all we bring to prayer is our holiness, what is the use of being there?  What am I not facing in myself that really needs my prayer..."

"To grow spiritually, I cannot hide - even from myself.  I must pray for self knowledge, the searing honesty that, with the grace of God, brings me to the heart of God.

Self knowledge saves us from ourselves."

And so I being this season praying for self knowledge and with the mantra of this day:

God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

Amen