Skip to main content

Entering the Wilderness

This is morning, I am struck by a couple of passages from Holy Solitude:
Heidi Havercamp writes of the wilderness that Jesus entered into just after his baptism. Wilderness is a scary place…full of things that can harm you, no one to talk to and little food to sustain. One cannot help but feel vulnerable and exposed. “It draws prayer out from us in both awe, discernment, help or lament.”

“If Lent is a time for us to imitate Jesus’ forty days in the desert, then it should be less a time to suffer and endure and more a time to grow in this kind of wonder and vulnerability. Engaging in prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are not about punishment; they help us transcend ourselves—finding greater intimacy with God and greater clarity about who we are. These three practices are also disciplines of solitude, forms of self-denial or self-emptying to make more room in us for God."


"Lent is a wilderness set in time.”

How is this wilderness time so far? 
Comments are encouraged

....jrg 2/15/18

Comments

  1. Wilderness is a scary place, however, compared to our daily environment, you are away from city noises, traffic, hustle and bustles of life..... you are closer to nature, to where we are reminded of God's Creation. Sometimes, this brings you closer to God.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pondering the journey

Betty Hollister writes Judi assured me this week would be easier—more about a journey, maybe even something as simple as a walk in nature.  Ok.  Maybe. I admitted to her that even though I didn’t “like” the week of “Solitude and Struggle,” it did make me think, and I liked that.  And, the thinking, of course, didn’t stop this week.   Monday’s lesson reminded us how Jesus sought solitude by walking away from the crowds after periods of “greatest exertion or emotional distress. ”  That made complete sense.  If Jesus, fully human, but also fully divine, needed time alone to talk to His father and renew his strength to heal the next in line or preach to the next crowd that made complete sense.  Even Tuesday’s suggestions about labyrinth walks to “get lost in God’s creation” made sense to me.  Then, I read about the “blue-gray-green monks” who turned that color due to hardship and fasting and Mary of Egypt who wandered for decades alone in th...

Holy Saturday

From Rachel Matthews - Today I have been chopping, measuring, mixing, cooking, mixing some more, kneading, baking, waiting, waiting, tasting, arranging, cleaning, preparing.....and preparing....for guests. It is what you do at a funeral. Either you are preparing to serve and comfort the bereaved or, as the bereaved, you are preparing to receive the community, the family, the loved ones to walk with you to the grave and back again. Holy Saturday feels like the days before a funeral. Suspended between death and life, you just carry on. You work, as usual, but not. That's what the women who loved the Rabbi were doing: preparing the spices, arranging the body (Christ's body), wrapping, loving and weeping, and waiting, and waiting and preparing....for guests. I am giddy thinking about the surprise that awaited them - the Guest!! And, I am giddy waiting for our guests to come to our home. My boys won't be here, so there is grief. I miss them so much. But, the new Amer...

Friday Fast #2

I have to admit that I have not been looking forward to this fast from sound from the moment I read about it. While I am an introvert, needing time to recharge by myself, I also really don’t like extended periods of silence. I often have the TV on around the house, listen to audiobooks and podcasts and amuse myself by watching videos at my desk over the lunch hour. I am going to do my best to avoid all of that today.   In fact, because we had invited some friends to go to the movies this evening, I started my fast from extraneous sounds last night. I felt a bit cheated, not getting to watch the Olympics and the US women win the gold in hockey, but really do they need another viewer? Why does missing something on TV bother me so? We don't have a DVR at home, so when I miss it I usually just end up skipping a show, but maybe I watch too much TV.  Am I way too caught up in other people’s lives and accomplishments? Do I need to watch the news every day? What could I be doing ...