“One of the most obvious characteristics of our daily lives is that we are busy. We experience our days as filled with things to do, people to meet, projects to finish, [emails] to write, calls to make, and appointments to keep. Our lives often seem like overpacked suitcases bursting at the seams.”
– Henri Nouwen, Making All Things New
Dearly Beloved,
Do Nouwen’s words reflect your reality the way they do mine? I love (or is it loathe?) the image of an overpacked suitcase bursting at the seams. With all the transitions going on in our family life of late, “down time” seems more elusive than ever—and I know I’m not alone. The season of Lent brings additional layers of activity and possibilities for the life we share in community, but I hope and pray the effect is not to make those suitcases burst even more! In truth the opposite is what Lent strives for: to help us unpack the suitcase and stay awhile.
Nouwen continues his thoughts:
“From all that I said about our worried, over-filled lives, it is clear that we are usually surrounded by so much inner and outer noise that it is hard to truly hear our God when he is speaking to us. We have often become deaf, unable to know when God calls us and unable to understand in which direction he calls us. Thus our lives have become absurd. In the word absurd we find the Latin word surdus, which means “deaf.” …when we learn to listen, our lives become obedient lives. The word obedient comes from the Latin word audire, which means “listening.” A spiritual discipline is necessary in order to move slowly from an absurd to an obedient life, from a life filled with noisy worries to a life in which there is some free inner space where we can listen to our God and follow his guidance.”
Freeing inner space in order to tune in to God; coming back to ground—that’s the essence of Lent. To get there we may need to take stock of our overscheduled lives, prune back obligations, and slow the rhythm of our days enough that we can move from absurd deafness to obedient listening. This kind of listening doesn’t magically happen all at once. It’s a practice that must be cultivated; and cultivating anything takes time.
Jesus, says Nouwen, was “all ear.” Always listening to the Father, always attentive to his voice, always alert for God’s directions. It was this being “tuned in” to God that enabled Jesus to tell his followers:
“Do not worry about your life…do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For … your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6)
The Lenten disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are not ends in themselves but are tools which, by holding our attention, help us detach from lesser obligations, freeing up bandwidth for us to pay better attention to our spiritual lives. Claimed by God in baptismal waters we are beloved children! The daily agenda for our lives has its starting point here.
With anxiety on the rise due to spreading corona virus, volatile financial markets, and the uncertainties of this election year, we do well to exercise care in choosing which voice(s) we will tune our ears to hear. As we gather at the Table and tune in to the words “this is my body…this is my blood…given for you,” we are assured that Christ will walk with us through thick and thin, up and down, beckoning us to unpack our overstuffed suitcases and exchange our absurd lives for obedient ones.
With you on the Way,
Pastor Erik
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What does this mean?
