To keep a holy Lent - week three

The invitation to keep a holy Lent speaks of the spiritual practices that help us to translate into action and behavior our spiritual longing for connection with God. Oftentimes we live out of touch with this longing because it does not always register consciously. Spiritual practices are simply methods for bringing unconscious soul longing and soul pain into conscious awareness. In weeks one and two, I explored fasting and self-denial, making these ancient practices comprehensible to our 21st Century mindset.

Prayer and meditating on God's holy Word are practices commended to us.  Many of us get stuck on prayer as intercession. Much intercession seems to function as our initiative, seemingly designed to raise God's consciousness about the concerns we think important, or to present God with our shopping list of desires. In reality, intercession works in reverse. Intercession attunes our consciousness to the concerns that God continually bears for the plight of the creation. Thanksgiving is prayer opening us to experience gratitude, paving the way for converting gratitude into actions of generous living. These forms of prayer take root as we listen more, and speak less as we settle into our spiritual journey. So what are we listening for?

I'm more intuitive than sensory. Therefore, I try to follow a pattern of sitting and listening for the presence of the Spirit speaking through my intuition, which is my gut-level awareness, or through my insight, which is more of an intellectual awareness. If you are more sensory in orientation, you might listen for God communicating through images, and feeling states often triggered by the world around you. Very often the most I can manage is simply to try to sit in one place and watch myself breath, repeating under my breath the Aramaic phrase: maranatha, - come Lord! I am hardly ever conscious of how this prayer makes a difference other than at some dim level of awareness I know that in the silence, which is paradoxically still filled with the clamor of my thoughts, I am opening a little chink in the protective walls of my defenses, through which I am transformed by the trickle of Grace into my life.

To meditate on God's holy Word is an ancient practice known as Lectio Divina or divine reading. Taking a small section - no more than a sentence or two, particularly from the Gospels or Psalms, we slowly read the passage several times. We note the word or phrase that attracts our attention. This word or phrase creates associations in our imagination. This is not so much a study of scripture as it is an encounter with the text brought to life so that we might discover God's invitation to pay attention to something in the next 5-7 days. Norvene Vest describes this process in a very user-friendly manner in her little book, Gathered in the Word which can be found here on Amazon. 

Despite the weather it's wonderful to see so many of you in Church. See you Sunday!
Mark+ 

Ukranian Easter Egg Painting Classes: Saturday afternoons during Lent: March 14,21 from 1-4pm at St. Mary's Episcopal Church, 81 Warren Avenue, E. Prov. RI  02914 Adults $10, children $5. All supplies provided. Call 434-7456 for more information.
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