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. pmyFebruary 15, 2018 at 11:28 AM

    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

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

Good Friday: We Don't Know What We're Doing

From Eric Corbin... As I write, I have just returned from the joint Good Friday service with First Methodist Church.  Their pastor read from Luke's account of the crucifixion of Jesus, ending at verse 34 of chapter 23: "Then Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.'"  We also heard a wonderful soloist sing from "Sweet Little Jesus Boy" the haunting words "We didn't know it was you." I'm reminded of this meme: I think we all feel that way sometimes, maybe often.  We don't know what we're doing in our families, our jobs, in our churches.  On this day, though, we must reflect specifically on the cross and our role in Jesus' death; on how we don't know what we're doing when it comes to Jesus. "Sweet Little Jesus Boy" continues: You have shown us how And we are trying Master you have shown us how Even when you were dying Just seems like we can't do right Lo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Friday Fast #1

A note up front: in writing this post, I'm not able to follow the author's instruction to not reveal your fast to others. Today, we begin the first of the Friday Fasts the author describes.  When I read the subtitle, "Drink Only Water (Eat as Usual), I thought I'd have no troubles with this one!  Most days I do drink only water.  I rarely drink coffee or other hot drinks, and almost every meal is accompanied by a glass of water.  Each day, I carry around my First Pres water bottle with, you guessed it, just water in it.   So, no problem for me.  I'll get "credit" for this fast without even trying!  Then I read further and found this instruction: "Drink only water, without ice and without flavoring. Hot or warm water is okay."  Darn.  I love  ice water, the colder the better.  I'm supposed to drink warm or even hot water?  Not my cup of, er, water...but I'm going to do it today.  I'm going to focus on the big questio...
Post a Comment
Read more