A Simple Practice to Orient Your Life in Christ (Especially in Lent)
A few years ago, Rachel and I participated in a 12-week version of the Ignatian Exercises as part of our spiritual direction training. The exercises, called "A Retreat in Everyday Life," is a series of scriptural meditations, prayer, the examen, and processing with a spiritual director. The creation and significance of the Ignatian Exercises is a post for a different time (although we have highlighted the prayer of Examen in previous posts).
As part of this experience, each day we would pray and reflect on what was called "The grace I ask for." These were short, one-sentence requests that were connected with the themes. "The grace that I ask for" stayed the same for a full week.
Resources for This Lenten Season
Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, which marks the start of Lent. Ash Wednesday reminds us of our sinfulness and our frailty, but more than that, Ash Wednesday and Lent remind us of God’s goodness and faithfulness. Only when we reflect on our full humanity, do we fully realize who God is and who God made us to be through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s through this season of reflection that we recognize the magnitude and magnificence of God’s great love for us.
This season serves as a disorienting rhythm. Lent invites us into something different from the rest of the year.
Reflecting on Lent, Distraction, and Holy Week
This year, I decided to be ambitious and give up several things for Lent, among which was watching TV (which didn’t last long…more on that below) and Instagram. Both Bryan and I decided to charge our phones in the living room at night, so we wouldn’t be tempted to look at them first-thing upon waking each morning. My hope was to replace the time I spend scrolling, reading news articles (that often only make me angry), and mindlessly numbing out on the same favorite TV shows ("Parks and Rec” or “The West Wing,” anyone?) with more reading, more conversation with my husband, and more time devoted to activities that are actually restorative rather than simply distracting.
Here’s what I've learned: I really, really like being distracted. And even if I remove one or two major distractions from my daily life, I will find a way to replace them with others. I’m one of those people that flees discomfort and inner conflict and looks for the nearest available distraction. And I’m an expert at distracting myself.
Vineyards, John 15, and the Rhythm of Lent
In the vineyard, we can’t force the grapes grow, no matter how hard we labor and toil. It is beyond our power to produce them. But we have a massively important role: we have to prune and thin the vines. We have to spray to keep mold from growing, and tie on bird tape so the grapes don’t get eaten by birds. We can’t make the sun shine, but we can pull the extra leaves off so that the sun’s rays can reach the grapes directly.
Spiritual writers for centuries have been constantly trying figure out where God’s work ends and ours begins. I received an email from a friend last week that said, “Especially intriguing is the mystery of how God is the one who initiates, and we cooperate with it all.”