Beloved Friends-
In less than two weeks we will begin another season of Lent. Lent has been described as a 40-day wilderness journey in which we are invited to engage in the serious spiritual practices of fasting, almsgiving and prayer. It is also a church season that so well matches the season we find when we step outside into the once again cold air and see the barrenness of the landscape; both inside and out these parallel seasons can easily be equated with emptiness, loneliness, and an aching or yearning of the soul. For some Lent is an invitation of disciplined purging if you will, a time to rid ourselves of all the things we have let get in the way of our relationship to and with God. And while I see and have experienced the value for that type of discipline, I am going to also ask us to consider another invitation. This year I am asking that we “walk together.”
This year’s theme for Lent will be “We Make the Road by Walking.” You will hear and experience more about this theme in the weeks ahead, but for now I need your help.
One of things we would like to do is collect and display as many different kinds of shoes as we can collect/borrow during the season. We ask that you look at your shoes, think about the stories they can tell- where they have been and where they have taken you- through moments of joy or heartache. This Sunday and next, please consider bringing a pair of your shoes- we will tag with your name and leave for us to use throughout Lent.
Together we will journey into this time, asking for the courage to embrace the lessons God will surely offer as we make our way through the desert and towards the foot of the cross. Please mark your calendars and plan to be with us on Wednesday nights for Soup and Cinema, and or stay for the 3-Sunday morning conversations: “What’s Sin Got to Do with It”!
Give us the courage, O God, to hear your word and to read our living into it. Give us the trust to know we’re forgiven, and give us the faith to take up our lives and walk..
May you never forget that you are loved.
Lisa
“The Walk” by Ann Weems
Those of us who walk along this road do so reluctantly.
Lent is not our favorite time of year.
We’d rather be more active—planning and scurrying around.
All this is too contemplative to suit us.
Besides we don’t know what to do with piousness and prayer.
Perhaps we’re afraid to have time to think, for thoughts come unbidden.
Perhaps we’re afraid to face our future knowing our past.
Give us the courage, O God, to hear your word and to read our living into it.
.
Give us the trust to know we’re forgiven, and give us the faith to take up our lives and walk.