Friday Thoughts/Where Has the Time Gone?

I haven't done a lot of writing this Lent, unlike most years, but that doesn't mean I haven't done a lot of reflecting. Being an extremely verbal person (take that as you will - I talk too much or I have a great vocabulary or whatevs), I thought (no, felt!) it would be good to take some time off from trying to process everything all the time and just let some things be. And so I've been saying my prayers and watching out for God in the world and looking at images in hopes of relating them to those prayers and that action of God.  I didn't set out for this (not reflecting through writing) to be my Lenten discipline (for a lot of reasons I never got around to deciding on a Lenten discipline) but it turns out to have been just that.

And what it has boiled down to is this, which is neither profound nor permanent but does seem to speak to where I am in life right now: it is very easy for me to live in my head and to become isolated and I have come to realize (allow myself to?) that I long to experience something I cannot plan or manufacture for myself. I need to move toward others to hear about their own experiences and their own questions and the things that they wrestle with.  I need to hear them tell about the grace that moves through their lives. Not so I can answer their questions but so that they can help me answer mine.

Meanwhile, where has the time gone? Reflection of the sort I turned out to have been doing takes me into a more timeless space. But the calendar and to do list now call. We are almost there, to Holy Week, an overwhelming time for many of us. We clergy have calendars and schedules packed with sermon writing and liturgies at which we preside or assist or preach. We visit the sick, we renew our ordination vows, we walk with our congregations and parishioners through this extraordinary time in the life of the church that reflects upon this extraordinary time in the life of Jesus. We are at church in the morning and in the evening and are in conversation in-between about logistics.  We walk through it with joy (being very busy during Holy Week does not make us feel put upon - we are humbled by the privilege we have to serve God and God's church and God's people) and also being aware of the cosmic scope of this whole thing.

And so that's where I am as we approach Palm Sunday. I hope your Lent has been a blessing to you. It's about time to buckle our seat belts for the Holy Week ride again.