More Bathroom Wall Messages

I never set out blogging thinking I would post three blogs concerning bathroom graffiti but it appears to be the chalkboard of life. The latest posting at my place of work was the following: "Jesus may love me but everyone else here thinks I am an ass hole". I never moved past that for the remainder of the day.

I do not know who penned those words or their life story but it is easy to hear pain coming from his life and a sense of failure. I can sympathize with his emotions because we work in an environment that values production and profits over its people. It seems this has become corporate America.

This bathroom scrawl was a plea to be heard and the only place available was a bathroom stall. Some may interject that this person could be a hothead, someone hard to get along with, or a general malcontent. I suppose any of those are possibilities but the messenger is not completely cynical he still senses that "Jesus loves him." Yet, I would wager there are days he even doubts that.

I will never meet the bathroom wall author and his voice of complaint will never be discussed in the corporate office nor published in a letter to the editor, but I am glad he took what space he had and emoted his thoughts. I pray he senses that in some way he was heard and that his life is of worth. I continue to believe that very raw and real expressions of pain are heard by God as acceptable prayers.

Practicing Spiritual Disciplines for Lent

First Sunday of Lent

March 9^th, 2014

The Spiritual Practice of Fasting – Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7/Psalm 32/Matthew 4:1-11/Romans 5:12

“It takes more than bread to stay alive. It takes a steady stream of words from God’s mouth.”

                                                                                                                                       Matthew 4:4 MSG

“If death got the upper hand through one man’s wrong doing, can you imagine the

breathtaking recovery life makes, sovereign life, in those who grasp with both hands this wildly extravagant

life gift, this grand setting-everything-right, that the one man Jesus Christ provides?”

                                                                                                                                       Romans 5:17 MSG

The Lectionary texts for this first Sunday of Lent wind their way from the Garden of Eden and the fall of mankind, onward to a confession of sin and lament by the Psalmist, arriving at last in the desert where Jesus faces temptation before the inauguration of his ministry.

In Genesis we find Adam and Eve in paradise and in Matthew we find Jesus in the desert. But no matter the location, one of luxury or lack, temptation is present. Temptation is real and it is common to all of us. Life can be difficult to navigate even when we consider ourselves to be in the lap of paradise. The ancient practices of discipline are needed to keep us attuned to the voice of the Spirit.

 Having been led by the Spirit into the desert, Jesus faced temptation and forty days of fasting. In the wilderness Jesus would have to incarnate,  “This is my Son in whom I am well pleased.” I am grateful that those words of grace precede all of our trials, temptations and any attempts at obedience.

During forty days on the mountain, Moses received the Law on tablets of stone. Jesus, during his days in the wilderness, became the Word made flesh. We have moved from stone to flesh. Fasting is more than abstaining from food; it is a time when we allow the Word to take on flesh in us.

Three things speak to me in the texts: paying attention/ listening to your life, trust, and grace. First, fasting calls us to pay attention to the activity and revelation of God in our midst. Fasting sets the spiritual table enabling us to listen to our own lives, to touch, taste, and sense our way into the depth of God’s love. Fredrick Buechner declares, “Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and in the pain of it no less than the excitement and gladness; touch, taste, smell your way to the holy hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments and life itself is grace.” Fasting enables us to pay attention and to hear all the mysterious ways God is already at work in our lives.

Second, fasting, as with all the spiritual practices, helps us to learn trust. Jesus did not yield to his flesh in the desert. His strength and trust were in God alone. Jesus believed the blessing the Father spoke over him at baptism. . Katherine Marie Dykman in her book “Inviting the Mystic” states, “Spirituality consists not in becoming more and more responsible in the fulfillment of duty, but in becoming more and more faithful in a love relationship…not so much a question of running up a steep hill…as it is of letting go…falling backward in trust, believing that we will be caught up in loving protective arms.” Fasting is not duty, it is an opportunity to let a myriad of things go and to fall back in trust into God’s protective arms.

Third, grace runs through each text. Fasting is a time to give room for the experience of grace and to be filled with that grace in the depth of our being. Fasting and all spiritual practices find voice and meaning for me in Denise Levertov’s poem The Avowal;

“As swimmers dare

to lie face to the sky

and water bears them,

as hawks rest upon air

and air sustains them,

so I would learn to attain

freefall, and float

into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,

knowing no effort earns that all surrounding grace.”

 Heavenly Father, in this time of fasting, give us faith to let go of the daily things that occupy our lives allowing us to fall into the mystery of your love more fully. May we emerge from the Lenten season full of grace and truth.