Welcome to #Lent2017!

WELCOME TO #LENT2017 ! The Book of Common Prayer bids us, the “dear people of God, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word.” Wuhl, okay. Let’s roll up our sleeves, then, right? The first and most important point is to begin this journey with great hope and confidence. God is never outdone in generosity. So, if we make even a small change in our patterns, that is a tremendous opening for God to work in us. Let’s pace ourselves, though … as we begin these weeks of exercising our spirits, let’s be kind to ourselves when we might resist. Let’s not expect, look for, or demand progress. Let’s enjoy and live the process, even though, as with physical exercise, we might not like doing it every day. Let’s allow God to give the increase, the insights, the progress. “Perfection is a masculine desideratum, while woman inclines by nature to completeness.” … just as completeness is always imperfect, so perfection is always incomplete, and therefore represents a final state which is hopelessly sterile. Imperfection carries within it the seeds of its own improvement. If perfectionism is ever achieved, then the story is over, there’s nothing left to do. Perfectionism is, in and of itself, a death which always ends in a blind alley, while completeness is that silence between the OMs - a breath - and then we’re off again. All final spiritual reference is to the silence beyond sound, the intake of breath between the OM. Beyond the Om is the transcendent unknown, the unknowable. It can be spoken of as the great silence, or as the void, or as the transcendent absolute. That is why the supernatural is really only the natural. This is one of the glorious things about the tradition of seeing God as female, where the world is the body of the Goddess, divine in itself, and divinity isn't something ruling over and above a fallen nature, but we are all one, together, warmed, existing in the womb of the Creator. So let’s snuggle down comfortably in to this nest, be worshipers who worship in spirit and in truth, and begin practices which will result in a truly meaningful Lenten season. (me, BCP, Jesuits of Omaha, Jung, Joseph Campbell)