Mardi Gras - Anticipation



Tomorrow the season of Lent begins. Today is Mardi Gras – or Fat Tuesday.  It is traditionally the time just before a season of prayer, fasting and almsgiving when we have our “Alleluias” still.  There is great revelry and fun.  This is a time of release and freedom before the constraints of Lenten disciplines.  Happy Mardi Gras one and all!

Often I take today (or these few days before Ash Wednesday) as a time to pray about what God might be asking of me during the upcoming Lenten days.  I typically resist falling into the “same old, same old” pattern of how I have always kept Lent.  I believe that each year I am called to something new or renewed. The question really is “What do I need to do (or not do) to be open to God’s movement toward resurrection within me?”  

This year I am thinking about the word “Lent.” In French the word “lentement” means slowly and that feels right to me.  I know that this is not the origin of the word, but the sense of moving slowly and deliberately through the next 40 days seems to be my call. I feel moved to slow down where I can, so as to allow the graces of the moment to wash over me and hopefully, stay with me.

The pace of my life, with meetings and chores and phone calls and appointments can be relentless.  There is always so much to do and somewhere to be.  My thoughts when awake and even in sleep are about the next three things to come, leap frogging over the person or situation right in front of me.  Instead of seeing the active presence of God in the moment, I feel as though I am always anticipating God’s actions and not quite experiencing them.  I believe God to be with me, acting in my life and yet sometimes it is only upon reflection that I can see the footsteps of God.

And so as I experience these last hours of Mardi Gras, I am going to try to slow down a bit, open my eyes and ears and heart and pay attention to God right here and now.  I believe that as I do this, I will see, hear, taste, feel and know God-with-us once again.  Yes, there is a discipline to keeping Lent from now until Easter, but it a discipline that can free us for God.  This year I pray that we not experience this time as confining or limiting, but rather that we use this time to know God in a new and deeper way.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What is ours to do?

Image
 This is a blog post I offered to God's Word, Many Voices and thought I would share it here as well. Sue Monk Kidd, in her book Dance of the Dissident Daughter asks the question:   After you wake up, can you wake up anymore?”   I thought of that quote as I prayed with St. Paul’s message to the Thessalonians both last week and this one.   “Stay alert and sober” he admonishes.   I don’t know about you, but too many days during this time of COVID-19 and the build up to the elections, I have wanted to do just the opposite, pull the covers over my head and go back to sleep.   And yet sleep has often been illusive as I have tossed and turned, imagined and feared, hoped and dreaded.   So what might Paul be saying to me in this time and place of November 2020?   What is the call? I turn to the Gospel for today.   It is the familiar story of the distribution of talents and the servants who use and multiply their talents and the servant, who out of fear of retribution, buries the talen
Read more

Fan that flame into fire

Image
  It is Election Day and somehow it feels safe for me to once again take up my keyboard and jot some musings.   I have found these past months with the political drama, the civil unrest and COVID-19, that I am exhausted.   How about you?   I try to focus on my work and friends and family, but everything I do is colored by these realities.   I cannot plan to see my friends or family without figuring out how to do it safely.   I have become adept with the technologies of FaceTime, ZOOM and kids messenger.   Reimagining how do to everything takes so much energy.   At Bethany House we talk of how “open” can we get the shelter and food pantry and keep the guests and volunteers safe.   At Church, I cannot bring communion to those who really have a desire to receive because I am afraid I might bring them more than the Eucharist.   With friends, we negotiate any type of gathering with questions like “how comfortable are you with …” or should we just ZOOM?   The political drama playing itse
Read more

Could we move any slower?

Image
Last week was kind of a “slow starter” sort of week. Not every day, or every part of every day, but as I look back on the week, that certainly characterizes the week.   What do I mean?   Well, most mornings it was hard to get up and start the day.   I did not feel unwell, but I did not feel “right” either.   My early morning prayer time seemed more like a time of trying to quiet the noise in my head than a time of listening for the presence of God.   Sitting down to whatever tasks of the day seemed like navigating through a sea of molasses.   And there were some “tasks” that did not get done – like the writing of these reflections. So here I am, at the start of a new week with some new energy and renewed direction.   This time of “stay at home” orders and living daily with the reality of COVID-19 is unlike any we have ever experienced. For many of us, our usual coping mechanisms aren’t quite up to the task.   And the stressors are new and different too, so moving through this t
Read more