A Lenten Discipline—every year it is a struggle to pick something that will help me grow in either humility, grow closer to Jesus, or both. Then comes the challenge of following it to the end as my resolve often grows thin around week four. I have had two pieces of advice that have come to me through the years. This advice was not related to Lent, but to life, and it tumbles through my brain as I turn toward Lent this year.
1. Try something new
2. Stick with the plan
I wonder, if just maybe it is not so much what I do, as long as the intention is to grow closer to God AND that I DO it.
What if there is some surprise waiting for me, if I step outside the usual. (Whew, that feels a little uncomfortable!) I am currently sitting in a new phase of my life, newly retired. I am on an uncharted road. Daily routine……well there isn’t one quite yet. I set aside time for God each morning, and I eat breakfast. The rest has activities, chores, and projects, but does not have a routine. It is a time of wandering and meandering, and discovering.
One of my favorite prayers was written by Thomas Merton.
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that, if I do this,
You will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore I will trust you always
though I may seem to be lost
and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
My Lenten Discipline this year: walk……walk a road, any road, an unknown road, allow myself to be a little lost. Pray Merton’s prayer before I go and then no music or podcast for the journey. Be attentive to what I am seeing and what I notice. Collect those thoughts of the journey, whatever they may be and give thanks for them. It fits my life right now. God speaks into each of our lives, right where we are if we but create moments where we can allow ourselves to hear. This is my story, what is yours?
—The Rev. Elizabeth Davis