Follow the Leader

Today’s post goes straight to the point. If we worship Jesus - but don’t follow Him, what kind of worship are we offering? What does “worship” mean if we say we worship Him, but we don’t touch the lepers in our lives, or embrace those who are grieving? If the broken, hungry, and searching of the world don’t see in me that they did in Him - what kind of worship am I offering?

Of course, none of us starts off following more than worshipping. That’s just kind of impossible. And the longer we follow His example - the more we experience that following His example really takes all of us laid upon the altar as a living, daily, offering to Him. At least, speaking for myself, it takes everything I have to get up every day and live by His example. It’s a huge, ongoing effort - and after that realization we say, “I coulda had a V8!” or rather the Christian version, “Jesus was amazing!”

And He still is amazing.

But it’s really hard to follow Him, isn’t it? I mean, worship is so beautiful. We can sing our favorite worship song, recite our favski Psalm or parable, or linger a while in soul-nourishing prayer - but none of those things wears on my soul like swallowing that sharp-tongued thing I was going to say, or being neighborly to some stranger who just took my parking spot or, showing patience to the person who just insulted me to my face.

So why do those things, then? I mean if they’re harder to do, and if worship is enough, then why get worked up. Isn’t perfectionism bad for us?

Perfectionism is bad for us, but “me-ism+worship is badder.” You can quote me on that.

Followership, the more I embrace it, is like a daily, spiritual spa treatment for my soul. Jesus uses His example in my life, and His Spirit speaking (and sometimes shouting) to work the thorny bits out of my soul. Following Jesus’ example in my day-to-day, mundane, boring ol’ life teaches me from the top of my soul to the marrow in my bones, that the sharp-tongued thing I was going to say isn’t even about them but is in fact entirely about me, and that reality tends to hit me hard as I’m trying to fall asleep. The stranger I’m neighborly too, might see my tiny little neighborliness and light up my whole day after it happens. Then again, if they don’t see, Jesus may give me grace to think about all the myriads of unrecognized graces He blesses me with. The person who insults me may offer me an opportunity to bask in the security of Jesus’ love without having my ego affirmed at every turn - which is another way to say it can help me build resilience.

So, what I’m saying is that followership leads to much deeper, more meaningful, more soul-engaging worship. Worship that comes from followership connects my daily efforts to Jesus’ daily life. There is nothing we experience on a daily that Jesus didn’t also have to deal with. And that is really humbling. He went through all I’m going through and His response was to die for all those people giving Him all that grief? Followership has a way of putting Jesus on a throne of praises right in my own heart.

Okay - thank you for reading these Lenten season 2023 posts. I am grateful for you. I’m going to keep posting more of this for a bit. I have been informed though, that sometimes the algorithms are not always notifying subscribers and followers of new posts. I am not sure how to fix that today, but I am looking into it. For now - what I’m told is sharing and liking and all that will help the algorithm work better, so if you’d like to help me with that, I’d appreciate it very much.

Come back next week to read about the Secret Sauce!

What's This Maundy Thursday Stuff Anyway?

The other day I mentioned to someone that tomorrow is Maundy Thursday and they shot me a funny look and then said, “I think you mean Mardi Gras”

It’s easy to ignore this. It can also be more comfortable to ignore it.

But I am madly and wildly in love with it.

What do you like to do before the most difficult day of your life? Go to bed early? Special dinner? Extra time doing something you like? Skip out of some responsibilities? What would be your preferred self-care at such a crucial moment?

I’m sitting here going ape that on the night before the worst day ever Jesus’ life - He had a menaingful but simple dinner with the guys He’d been trying to teach everything to for quite some time - and then He sums the whole three years of stomping all over His dusty homeland and sloshing all around that huge Sea of Galilee - and he gets up, get’s comfortable to do His cultures most lowly job - and starts washing His disciples’ feet.

His self-care, was telling us to care for one another, serve one another, Love one another.

Not gimme gimme gimme. Not, “ya know what? I’m gonna eat all the deviled eggs, okay? They’re MY favorite. Not fight over politics - which would’ve been as big a disaster for them as for us because Jesus’ hand-picked disciples subscribed to at least 5 different political parties.

Nope - He’s scrubbing His disciples’ feet. Not feet shod in 21st-century shoes and having ridden around all the last three years in some cushy air-conditioned SUV. Nope. We all know those feet were in need of more than a pedicure. It was the most disrespected job because everyone’s feet were like that and everyone with feet like that or even us today with our pristine, barely used up baby-smooth feet wrapped in plush socks and squishy shoes - LOVES that kind of TLC. And - it just needed to be done. He wanted them to have this bit of loving from Him because He knew what was coming. And as He’s scrubbing the caked-on grime off their tired dogs and toweling them dry, He’s telling them “This is how you love one another.”

For God so LOVED the world He gave His only Son - and His only Son - on His last night with His friends - loved on them like crazy.

The name MAUNDY comes from the Latin word from which we get our modern English word mandate. The Thursday before Good Friday we celebrate Jesus’ commandment - His mandate to love one another.

And I am as certain as I am short - that He gave us that mandate for our good. They were about to have their worst day ever too. A bad day stinks no matter how you slice it - but it sure does stink a whole lot less if you can go through it with those who love you - and I mean love you enough to grab your stinky, crusty, dusty old foot and tenderly scrub it - and still love you all the same if not even just a bit more because ain’t nobody’s foot, or problems, or heart-aches or burdens any better. We’re all carrying the same old awful stuff. Oh sure - yours may seem to be a bit different from mine, but that’s just cuz our human eyes are sometimes easily confused.

And isn’t this so much of what makes Good Friday so good? He went through that bad Friday for our good and it was His good pleasure to do so. Just like it was His good pleasure to let us in on the secret sauce He was going to use in order to get through it. We talk about being united with Him in baptism which was like His death - but I do not think we talk enough about being united with Him in Love.

Love like the kind He washed those feet with and dabbed them dry again - it’s “checkbox” love. It’s transformational love. It’s the kind that absolutely will not work if we attempt it out of obligation. It’s the kind that flows from seeing ourselves as He does - which always is an adjustment from the glitz and glam of the world. He sees our brokenness and loves us anyway - if not all the more. He sees our imperfections and still washes away. He sees all those things about us that we will never figure out how to bring to Him, and still, he gently dries between every single toe. It’s the kind that knows that we just will never give Him some areas of our lives - out of fear, or anger, or blindness or whathaveyou - and still He tells us that the secret sauce that makes it all work in so far as it can work at all, is Love - and even if we never get it as much as He’s love for us to, He’ll still go to the cross for us - out of love for us. He gave the mandate. He modeled the mandate.

Tomorrow is Mandate Thursday.

So we can have a lifetime of Good Fridays.

I’m broken by His wild, unstoppable, infinite love for us.

May we all love one another and together love what remember He did for us.

Wonder Drug - Why I'm Passionate about Compassion

I recently read a recently released book called “Wonder Drug” by Dr. Stephen Trzeciak MD, MPH, who’s chair of medicine at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University and Anthony Mazzarelli MD, JD MBE who’s the co-president and CEO of Cooper University Health Care. They both actually have lots of other roles – but the important thing to note is that they’ve written a book that is as beneficial to them in their positions as it is to anyone else. I became interested in the book when I heard them being interviewed about it on one of my favorite podcasts.

The book is absolutely worth the time it takes to read. Are you a numbers person? There are numbers for you. Are you a stories of personal impact, there are personal stories for you. I like both of the numbers and the stories. Here’s a short list of the lessons that have stuck with me after reading these two doctors’ work that have stuck with me and continue to encourage me.

·       Compassion fatigue is what happens when we almost practice something that looks like compassion but is not compassion purely for compassion’s sake. Practicing compassion to be thought of as compassionate doesn’t carry as many benefits and can even lead to burnout. Practicing compassion towards others at one level and towards yourself at another (or visa versa) also does not work as well. Practicing compassion out of obligation also deprives us of the full benefit of practicing compassion for compassion’s sake. I have grown to love compassion – and find that the more I lean into showing it to my loved ones, those in my church community, those in my local community, and the wider world – the easier it is to show it to myself too. And – I am so imperfect I truly need it. The more I show it the more humanized everyone becomes – the more I can minister to angels unawares and treat strangers and sojourners as I want to believe I would treat Christ. Christ denied compassion to no one. Even those he fought with, he also wanted to gather to him like a hen gathers her chicks.

·       The health field has a long standing position of saying to help people better, professionals need to distance themselves. What these two doctors found though, was that it’s that very disconnect that leads to compassion fatigue. In that case, and this is my paraphrase, compassion fatigue is a result of our human want and need to feel and show compassion being disconnected. We are made for compassionate connection, not discompassionate disconnection. But disconnection is often so painful, we can only do it discompassionately – because it just hurts us. We may not admit this easily to ourselves. I confess that once upon a time I valued big personalities, making “tough calls” with bluff and bluster and maybe even gruffness “for the good” of other. What I’ve come to understand from plenty of tough situations of my own is that I’m afraid that’s kind of crap. There is no strength like the strength of respect, dignity shown with kindness and compassion. I can only do this when I am up-to-date on engaging in the ongoing work on my soul with God to surrender the garbage that keeps me from feeling His loving-kindness, compassion and patient grace with me. I am only as compassionate to myself/others as I allow God to be to me. It takes a lot of intentional strength to stay in this process in a mind-set of progress not perfection.

·       It takes a tiny amount of compassionate connecting time to make a HUGE difference in our lives. Compassion isn’t some fluffy thing that we put out into the world. It is SOUL MEDICINE. The science, the data is clear – compassion doesn’t just feel good to our hearts, it actually protects them from actual physical heart disease. I KNOW!! Not only that – it can literally heal our hearts – spiritually from the burdens we carry in them, and even some of the physical damage in them. Is it a silver bullet? Clearly not. Is it magic? Don’t get me started. Not only does compassion make us feel engaged and meaningfully connected to our work, to our families – and I would say for me – to my purpose for being here, but it can even reverse and help us start to reclaim parts of ourselves that we’ve lost – like our hope, our agency – our ability to make our lives better. And how much time per day are we talking about? 15 minutes. We’ve all had a rough couple of years and I don’t know about you – but I often wish people were less mean, less angry, less irritable. Well. Come join me. Let’s be the change we crave. Can we make others change? And let’s be real, it’s silly to talk about that until I’ve changed me. I have worked hard on these issues in my life long before this book came out last year – but I am reinvigorated in my passion for compassion by this book and all that’s in it. I can’t speak for the rest of the world – but I sure am willing to stand with you as you stand with me – and together we will surely make a difference to one another – and that’s pretty awesome.

I Poke Bears. What do you do?

You cannot imagine how many different versions for a title I’ve tried out for this post. But this is the struggle. I wasn’t just struggling to find words with the right cadence and meaning, but to find the right words to spark curiosity.

But - here’s the thing. I am CERTAIN that God put me on this earth to challenge ideas, people, and church communities - all while challenging the heck out of myself. As I like to tell my friends, “I poke bears.” By that I mean I poke at judgments, assumptions, delusions, and sacred cows. I poke at my own and others.

And yet - if you know me, you know as well as I do that despite those words - I am playful, happy, humorous, gregarious, energetic, and deeply, deeply passionate about all the best things in life - family, friends, fellowship, faith, and fun!

In fact, the only reason I poke bears - is because that’s how God made me. And I endeavor to do so as fiercely lovingly and graciously as I can - for me and everyone I’m connected to, so that my bear-poking can be a gift.

What about you though? What is the gift God made you to bring? Thanks to most of our daily media diets consisting almost exclusively of digitally engineered anxiety-inducing, misinforming “infotainment,” most of us live a life where we kind of know that our smart phones feed us a constant diet of dumb garbage that makes us angry, feel bad, feel less, feel … despair - and yet we cannot put them down - we find it easier to go there over and over throughout the day. Every day. Yet - going to God - who I know so many of us know full well, see as loving, gracious, and all the rest of the good things - and yet somehow for most of us it is not as easy to drop into some peace and quiet with God and let Him heal us from the lumps and slumps of life as it is to pull out phones out again and consume another string of utterly forgettable and yet highly influential and soul stifling content.

Isn’t that odd?

And I know - that for so many of us - this is how it is because really sitting alone with God and baring our souls for the healing, rest, and restoration we so want - feels like a hurdle. In fact - I have heard it often said that it feels like that is maybe just the thing to make matters worse.

I have zero judgment. I get it.

Some folks do occasionally sit with God and get some of these things - but dang it all if some of them don’t pop out of those times with words, attitudes, and behaviors that frankly scare the crap out of the rest of us.

I have good news though.

Spending time with God can feel like a spa-day for your soul. Everything I’ve written about connecting with God this whole Lent so far, is aiming exactly at that. We are not social-media beings; we’re social beings. We’re not just made for connecting with one another. We’re made for connecting spiritually - to a community of people gathered to encourage one another in their pursuit of spiritual growth and healing - but also to God so we can experience divine healing and connection. I had to poke a lot of my own bears to arrive at a place where I love to spend time with God. I don’t know what your bears are. Some of them are probably the same as mine. Some are surely unique to you and your life experience.

Maybe this whole post you’ve thought that my “bear-poking” is all just for the sake of making people uncomfortable, but what if I’m talking about poking God - so you can get a bear hug? Of all the people Jesus lavished love and grace on in Gospels - how do we not all know to our bones - that He’d have loved for us - as much as any of them, to poke Him and ask Him for some of the love He came to give away?

I am absolutely certain that such a poke from you, is what He’s all about!

Code Hope

As I strive to listen deeply, and allow myself to be heard – as I press in to pay as close attention as I can to the whispers of the Spirit of God – it occurs to me that these goals of mine are complicated by how over extended we all are. I doubt it’s possible to over-extend God’s capacity to whisper to our souls – but – something does wane in us when we do not tune in to those whispers as often as we tune into those noises that offer us no solace.

I mean – can you relate? The time change comes and for all the articles, books and experts who declare that you can “adjust your sleep by one hour per night” – a simple one hour time change seems somehow to slam my sleep into a bumpier gear for at least a week. And no one, but no one tells the cat, the dog, the child that the clock that governs every adult’s life is up to its biannual shenanigans. So – you enter another week groggier than before which is just another way to say “even behinder” than usual. And then the whole world we encounter outside of our door is suffering more than usual under the same as well. Tensions seems to be the only thing freely available in unlimited supply sometimes.

So what do we do?

Did you know that almost 20 years ago Dr. Earl Bakken created a new hospital code. You’ve heard of code blue and code red, but have you heard of code lavender? Dr. Bakken named the code after the lavender plant known which is prized for its calming properties. Like the other older codes it is a crisis code – but this one to mental well-being of anyone in the hospital and is often called after a particularly challenging patient/staff event. It’s like a psychological first-aid/crisis response intended to help all affected by the event support one another and find restoration together. It’s led by highly trained staff who offer a variety of means to allow those affected to find expression and give voice to what they saw and experienced.

I had never heard of a code lavender until recently and since I learned about it I cannot stop thinking about it and honestly – I’ll post about it in more depth later on (I’m still researching it at the moment). Code lavender response teams exist in a variety of hospital settings now – and in some institutions, it goes by other names. Regardless of the name, the code connects people to their deeper self and reintegrates them – often via deeply spiritual practices such as group and individual prayer, meditation, discussion and expression via all sorts of creative means.

I want to do a personal code lavender. Not because today itself is so bad – but because there were a lot of hard days in the last year. We laid my dad to rest. We finished emptying out the family home. I started two new programs – then there’s all the things that keep dominating the global and national news … it feels stressful. I’d like to sit with some friends and support one another and ask, when did we stop being able to even numb by scrolling through our phones – now it just hurts to do so. There’s no dopamine rush in it – just irritation. Phone games are no reprieve – they just annoy with endless ads. Too much seems like too much work. And it is no help at all to just turn to whatever flavor of news you prefer and get even madder.

And yet these are the things that are most readily available to most of us. And these things are no help at all.

I refuse to believe that things are hopeless – they are not. I refuse to believe that this is how any of us has to feel. So – I invite you to join me for a Code Hope. This is a crisis code – with potential to become a care-code. To engage in a code hope, put your phone down and grab a steaming mug of something soothing - your favorite tea or cocoa or what have you and sit down and think back to a time recently you got to spend cheering up or helping someone you love. When did you last laugh with a friend? When did you last get to help someone in some way? When did you last get to be creative – and sing, write, draw, dance, experiment in the kitchen, tend a plant, or upgrade an old item? Can you give yourself the gift of some more of that? I know I want to. I want to reflect for a spell that the toxicity of digital everything can’t hold a candle to the power of hugging a neighbor, smiling at an old friend, playing with kids, petting and brushing the pets, gazing with satisfaction upon something you made – and feel pleased with.

And I do take such quiet moments. It’s sometimes much harder than others. But I suppose this is like every really good thing – it will not happen by accident. Patience. Mercy. Generosity. Humility. All these qualities that are the hallmarks of spiritual growth and maturity. They cannot happen on their own. I think back to earlier times in my life when things seemed simpler – and there were my parents – stressed to the moon.

If I don’t slam on the brakes and pause today – when am I going to?

But the risk always feels – really risky.

Surely the answer cannot be, “well, maybe tomorrow? Or, “I’ll start next Monday.” We all know how that goes.

And yet, the more I toss caution into the wind, the more I know that giving myself this permission is me leaning on Jesus, trusting, ignoring the incessant drumbeat, and turning my head so I can more clearly hear the voice of my Shepherd calling me. And the more it makes complete sense that His call leads me toward green valleys and quiet waters.

I suppose writing Lenten blog posts, some might think it should all be alms giving, fasting, and prayer. As good as these things are I already let the cat out of the bag – they are only as good as our “want to” do them – and if our soul feels a “should” around them then – perhaps they are not what we most right now. I mean – even Thomas Keating – the great proponent of centering prayer says, “If you fall asleep during centering prayer, you must need the sleep. God doesn’t care!” Perhaps a nap is your ticket to successfully implementing your own Code Hope.

Happy napping then if that’s the case. Most importantly – may we turn and rest a breath with our Shepherd and find with Him there all He longs to give us. I will give you grace while you risk your own code hope.

Cave of Whispers

Also known as Elijah’s cave. (you can read all about this passage in 1 Kings 19)

So often we don’t hear one another because we don’t even listen to ourselves. Sometimes we don’t just have ourselves and those coincidentally around us on “ignore”, but we have our closest loved ones on ignore - and even God on ignore.

Elijah - as a prophet of God - was someone whose whole calling was to hear what God was telling him. Sometimes even he needed help though. So in this account - Elijah, worn down and literally running for his life, hides out in a cave on Mount Horeb. While he’s there - God tells him to go to the mouth of the cave because the Lord Himself is going to pass by.

A gale force wind hurled by breaking up the rocks - but that was not the Lord.

An earthquake shook the mountains - but that was not the Lord.

A fire scorched all that was left - but that was not the Lord.

and then a gentle blowing came - and Elijah covered his face, because he knew this was the Lord.

And what did the Lord say to Elijah?

“What are you doing here?”

Did God not know what Elijah was going through?

The Lord was not asking Elijah for information - He was giving Elijah His ear. He was inviting Elijah to unburden his soul before the Lord.

How often do we long to be heard - but no one will just listen. Or how often does our heart ache to help someone we love - but we struggle to not gush with advice and solutions?

So often - we imagine that going to God to unburden our souls will be calamitous - stormy - or tumultuous. And yet - this is God as we imagine Him. So often - it’s not the “acts of God” that God uses to get our attention. It’s His whispers. He is our Shepherd, not our cattle driver. He isn’t the God who screams in our ear. He’s the God who whispers into our hearts.

This is another thing altogether to listen for though isn’t it. We have to still ourselves. We have to humble ourselves. We have to go to the mouth of the cave and answer His question, “Why are you here?”

Whether you have one minute or one hundred - I pray you take all of what you have to go to Him with all you feel on your heart - and allow yourself some time of being heard and hearing Him. Go for a drive. Go for a walk. Go sit in the tub and soak. Or take a long shower. Lay on the floor with your pet - or just a good pillow. Regardless - lay your burdens down as you share your heart and then let Him carry you and what you carry.

The Healing Power of Hearing

Last week I posted about the healing power of listening. Today I want to keep pressing forward with this idea how healing it can be to be heard – really heard.

But first I must confess. Sometimes the idea of being heard leaves me feeling nervous. It seems like there are just too many ways of not really being heard. You know when you’re not being heard because the energy of the conversation starts to get weird, and suddenly all you can think of are all the other things that need to be done in all the other places you’d rather be.

What happened?

The treasure of connecting purposefully got lost. Why does it sometimes get lost? Why does it feel so empty and pointless when it does get lost? Why does it feel so magical when we catch it? No. Not magical. It feels sacred.

Can we do something to make this happen more easily?

Can we stop the thing from happening that derails these moments?

How come it seems easy to imagine this working with some folks but not with others? What’s the thing that’s different between those with whom this back and forth happens naturally – and those with whom it just keeps falling flat?

Listening to someone who’s really listening to you – hearing someone who’s really hearing you – this is how we experience deep belonging. Real connection. In a delightfully human way of mixing senses – this is how we felt seen. This is how we experience being genuinely accepted. We feel ourselves belonging in these moments.

This takes a bunch of courage.

But how do we find our courage in these moments? Where does this courage come from? Can we get more of it? And is getting more of it going to involve something dreadful?

What if the very thing that helps us be heard – helps us become better hearers? Wouldn’t that be like a miraculous provision?

The Healing Power of Listening

Studs Terkel, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who wrote incredible oral histories from the biggest events of the 20th century, was a dedicated listener. He excelled at sitting down in front of someone who’d lived through unimaginable times and just listening. He knew just how to get them to recount their experience. Just at moment most of the rest of us would disrupt the conversation or shut things down – he’d pose a real “whopper”, a “doozy” – and then they’d be off. It was like he’d used all of his interviewees’ previous responses to zero in on a simply dead-on question that had been hanging around – just outside of the spoken. His conversation partner, often wouldn’t even realize how deeply they’d just been heard. But they would respond to being heard. And like a newly tapped underground spring, just start gushing one memory after another in a torrent of a flow. In the river of words, we’d hear a crucial moment being deeply humanized and BAM – we feel connected to the people going through that time.

This past fall I started two programs, spiritual direction in September and clinical pastoral education (that’s “chaplain training” to the uninitiated) in October. The center of the Venn diagram between the best of these two programs is listening.

When among the all relationships in your life, have things not turned out as you’d hope – despite everyone actually being fully heard – or fully hearing the other?

There is in both spiritual direction and in clinical pastoral education (CPE for short) the idea that sitting in front of someone who’s listening to you – really, deeply listening to what you’re saying is so rare – that just being deeply listened to and deeply heard has healing power. They’re right.

Getting ready to head into Lent this year into what feels like a very different world than the one we were living in not so long ago. I’m listening to myself and realizing that I feel like I’m running to just keep up. Just the other day I caught myself feeling uncomfortable and vaguely irritated and realized that I worked straight through my last couple of days off. Why’d I do that? Because instead of listening to me – to my soul – I let myself get harried by a whole bunch of externals.

Isn’t it funny how easy it is to kinda listen to just the pervasive din of disorganized media chatter shouting millions of voices at once and yet tune out the actual important stuff?

Yet in the space of a breath, we can pause and tune into the conversation within – the one between us and God.

I’ve usually begun Lent with a firm plan, plopped into place well before Ash Wednesday. This year though, I am beginning with a different plan. The plan is simply to listen to ourselves, one another, and of course, God. Who knows what could happen? What if it changes us? What if we heal?

What if we do Lent completely differently this year?

Hey there fellow traveler through these strange times. Tonight is Mardi Gras 2022. Mardi Gras - of course, means “Fat Tuesday” and it’s a tradition that goes by many names and forms all across the Christian world. The gist of Mardi Gras is to celebrate indulgent hedonism before starting the more aesthetic season of Lent with its traditional focus on fasting, almsgiving (offering and gifts), and prayer in preparation for Palm Sunday, Passion Week, Good Friday, and Easter (Resurrection Sunday).

Maybe you grew up with Lent and have your “go-to” thing that you do each year. Maybe you didn’t grow up with it and you’re thinking “Lent?”.

Just to make sure we’re all on the same page - the word “Lent” comes from a really old form of the word “lengthen” because this time of year is when we really start to notice how much longer the days are getting again. Traditionally, believers used the weeks leading up to Easter to dig in and grow spiritually. In the earliest days of the church, there was great concern that new converts, wherever they might live and worship, deserved to all hear the same truth and teaching. This time of year was also the time when it was easiest for families and communities to run short on resources - so a spiritual focus was a good way to redirect people and make the best of a tough situation.

These days, generally speaking, most of us struggle with abundance more than lack when it comes to food - and I think there have been plenty of things in our lives inspiring us to give and pray.

But you know what I think people are starving for? I think we’re hungry to feel deeply connected to our faith in a way that heals us, restores our souls, refreshes our spirits, deepens our love for God, God’s work in our lives, and God’s invitation for us to help others find more of these blessings in their lives. And unlike whatever your favorite food is, there is no downside to us feeling full of everything on that list.

So - here’s my challenge to you for Lent this year. Let’s do that. Let’s satiate our spiritual hunger and slake our godly thirst for more of all those gifts and blessings in our lives this Lenten season. Don’t worry if you’re not sure how to do that. I’ll be posting once or twice a week between now and Easter with some more short, but hopefully encouragingly provocative articles. I have some ideas already - but am hoping to grow more in these ways with you.

For now though - for this first day of Lent (or this first Wednesday of March if you prefer) here are a couple of questions to ponder.

• A long time ago I had a freshman ask, “I know God loves me because He’s theologically obligated. But does He like me?”

• If you were gifted a spiritual spa-day, what activities would you fill your day with?

• What if - like the first disciples - what if in six weeks - on Easter morning we could feel filled with more joy?

Whatever your plans are for tomorrow - I encourage you to dare dig in and take a bit of time to mull at least one of those questions over. Imagine yourself somewhere lovely - like this place below if you like as you reflect.

Talk to you again in a few days!