Dear Friends,
I wonder how we are all progressing through Lent and whether anything we sent you last week found resonance with you.
This week we continue with a few lines from our Lenten Litany and a few other pieces we hope may be helpful. One is very long: ‘Catch me in my Scurrying’ but it seemed worth having it all – you may want to take a bit at a time or ignore everything else & focus on just that one.
‘Bless to me, O God’ is our blessing this week. It is from the ‘Heavenly Peace’ CD by Geoffrey Nobes & we hope you will enjoy praying it. Maybe let’s pray it for each other, praying that we each experience Lent this year in a positive, life-giving way.
With our love
Fast from words that pollute; Feast on phrases that purify.
Fast from discontent; Feast on gratitude.
Fast from anger; Feast on patience.
Fast from pessimism; Feast on optimism.
Catch me in my Scurrying
Ted Loder
Catch me in my anxious scurrying, Lord,
and hold me in this Lenten season:
hold my feet to the fire of your grace
and make me attentive to my mortality
that I may begin to die now
to those things that keep me
from living with you
and with my neighbours on this earth;
to grudges and indifference,
to certainties that smother possibilities,
to my fascination with false securities,
to my addiction to sweatless dreams,
to my arrogant insistence on how it has to be;
to my corrosive fear of dying someday
which eats away the wonder of living this day
and the adventure of losing my life
in order to find it in you.
Catch me in my aimless scurrying, Lord,
and hold me in this Lenten season:
hold my heart to the beat of your grace
and create in me a resting place,
a kneeling place,
a tip-toe place
where I can recover from the dis-ease of my grandiosities
which fill my mind and calendar with busy self-importance,
that I may become vulnerable enough
to dare intimacy with the familiar,
to listen cup-eared to your summons,
and to watch squint-eyed for your crooked finger
in the crying of a child,
in the hunger of the street people,
in the fear of the contagion of terrorism in all people,
in the rage of those oppressed because of sex or race,
in the smouldering resentments of exploited third-world nations,
in the sullen apathy of the poor and ghetto-strangled people,
in my lonely doubt and limping ambivalence;
and somehow
during this season of sacrifice,
enable me to sacrifice time
and possessions
and securities,
to do something …
something about what I see,
something to turn the water of my words
into the wine of will and risk,
into the bread of blood and blisters,
into the blessedness of deed,
of a cross picked up,
a saviour followed.
Catch me in my mindless scurrying, Lord,
and hold me in this Lenten season:
hold my spirit to the beacon of your grace
and grant me light enough to walk boldly,
to feel passionately,
to love aggressively;
grant me enough peace to want more,
to work for more
and to submit to nothing less,
and to fear only you …
only you!
Bequeath me not becalmed seas,
slack sails and premature benedictions,
but breathe into me torment,
storm enough to make within myself
and from myself,
something …
something new,
something saving,
something true,
a gladness of heart,
a pitch for a song in the storm,
a word of praise lived,
a gratitude shared,
a cross dared,
a joy received.
Lent is a time to learn to travel
Light, to clear the clutter
From our crowded lives, and
Find a space, a desert.
Deserts are bleak: no creature
Comforts, only a vast expanse of
Stillness, sharpening awareness of
Ourselves and God.
Uncomfortable places, deserts.
Most of the time we’re tempted to
Avoid them, finding good reasons to
Live lives of ease; cushioned by
Noise from self-discovery,
Clutching at world’s success
To stave off fear.
But if we dare to trust the silence
To strip away our false security,
God can begin to grow his wholeness in us,
Fill up our emptiness, destroy our fears,
Give us new vision, courage for the journey,
And make our desert blossom like a rose.
Lenten Psalm of Longing
Edward Hays
I thank you, O God,
for the warming of the winds
that brings a melting of the snow,
for daylight hours that daily grow longer
and richer in the aroma of hope.
Spring lingers beneath the horizon
as approaching echoes of Easter
ring in my ears.
I lift up my heart to you, Beloved,
in this season of Lent
that gently sweeps across
my sluggish and sleeping heart,
awakening me to a deeper love for you.
May the wind of the Spirit
that drove Jesus into the desert,
into the furnace of prayers,
also drive me with a passion
during this Lenten season
to enkindle the fire of my devotion
in the desert of Lenten love.
Birds above, on migratory wings,
signal me to an inner migration,
a message that draws me homeward bound
on Spirit’s wings to the heart of my Beloved.
May I earnestly use this Lenten season
to answer the inner urge to return.