Life and Time.

Last summer, as I left an annual 8 day silent retreat, my spiritual director handed me a bright yellow card.  It had been a very grounding and revealing week.  Her guidance was clear, thoughtful and bold.  It was with some trepidation that I was headed back to the real world.  I looked down to see what was on the card in my hand.

"Tell me.  What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"  Mary Oliver

How do we use time?  What is God calling us to do or be?  How can we allow those wild and precious times in our lives to surface?  Do we miss them?  

Lent is a time of year we are invited to be very intentional about our life of faith.  For some it has a very penitential feel, but that does not need to be the purpose.  What is it that inhibits our relationship with God?  What is it that gets in the way of us being the the people God most longs for us to be?  This is a season of renewal.  This is a season of breathing new life into those dark places.  

"Figuring out how to keep a holy Lent can be a challenge, but if we move beyond the popular conceptions( and  misconceptions), Lent holds the possibility for real change - or to use the church's word, conversion - in our lives, as well as for rich and lasting spiritual growth. ( The word "lent" comes from the Anglo-Saxon word lencton, referring to the springtime of the year when the days grow longer and warmer and brighter.)" 

* Taken from:  Daily Prayer for All Seasons

Each year I love to find daily prayers or reflections for this season. This is a time of year that has always held tremendous meaning for me, long before I knew of Lent.  Being from New England and still living here, when lent begins, the weather is cold, the snow is on the ground, and in some ways we do hibernate.  It is an interior time.  But as the days stretch out before us, the liturgy and story of the Gospel invites us to find that light and love that is the fire within.  

This year our church will be using the The Society of St. John the Evangelist, lenten program, It's time to Stop, Pray, Work, Play, Love.  I will attach the link if you are interested.   In the opening letter from Geoffrey Tristram, the Superior, he says: 

"We believe that our disordered relationship with time is at the root of so many of the stresses and anxieties  people experience today, and we hope that the reordering of our relationship to time will help draw us into the abundant life which Jesus promises us."  

The wind is blowing outside my window  and the snow blows around.  This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday.  The sign of a cross is gently placed on our fore heads, as we hear the words, 'Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."  This is a full circle moment, "You are my beloved, with you I am well pleased."  

"Tell me, What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? " 

Mary Oliver

As we begin this new season, I look forward to the wisdom and grace that will inevitably come from the tilling of such rich soil.  

O God of love, you are the true Sun of the world, evermore risen and never going Down: We pray you to shine in our hearts and drive away the darkness of sin and the mist of error.  We pray that we may, this day and all our lives long, walk without stumbling in the way you have prepared for us, which is Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy spirit, one God in glory everlasting."  Amen

* Taken from: Daily Prayer For All Seasons