A Living, Beating Heart
A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh - Ezekiel 36:26
Lent is here. Every year when I see that Lent is coming up, I think about what I'm going to give up, or take on. I've given up social media, I've stopped eating meat, I've tried to take on more prayer. This year, I was thinking about what I need to give up to be closer to God, especially as I begin meeting with my vocational discernment committee in the coming months. I decided to fast from social media again (how many minutes do I spend on Facebook and Instagram that could be spent in prayer?), but I also thought about my thought patterns and my actions.
I've written before about how I can, at times, feel like I hate people. As a matter of fact, one of my big struggles is saying or thinking to myself "God I hate people" and then immediately berating myself for thinking that way. Here's a prime example: I'm driving on the highway and someone cuts me off. I get mad, I yell, I say "ugh, f***ing people" or something to that effect... what's really going on here?
What happened is that person scared me. I was driving along, more or less chill, when someone startled me. Adrenaline rushed through my bloodstream and jarred me out of complacency. Do I hate that person, or people in general for doing that? No. I hate the feeling of being scared.
It's easier to take it out on "people" than to say "God, I hate being jarred out of my complacency!" I feel like saying that to God is funny in a way. God is constantly jarring us out of complacency. I really feel like that's one of the most important aspects of the Christian life. Recently a friend of mine shared this prayer from Archbishop Desmond Tutu that says it incredibly well:
Disturb us, O Lord
when we are too well-pleased with ourselves
when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little,
because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, O Lord
when with the abundance of things we possess,
we have lost our thirst for the water of life
when, having fallen in love with time,
we have ceased to dream of eternity
and in our efforts to build a new earth,
we have allowed our vision of Heaven to grow dim.
Stir us, O Lord
to dare more boldly, to venture into wider seas
where storms show Thy mastery,
where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars.
In the name of Him who pushed back the horizons of our hopes
and invited the brave to follow.
-Amen
Fear has far too often caused me to sail too close to the shore, to reach for easily attainable things, to be satisfied with the status quo. What would it look like to give up fear for Lent? Maybe I can't give up feeling afraid, but I could stop hating that feeling so much. Courage is about being afraid, but doing what you are called to do anyway in spite of the fear. Fear causes me to stay in a place of having a stony heart, when God wants a living, beating heart of flesh. Next time I feel that rush of fear when someone cuts me off, I could be grateful that the adrenaline saved me from getting into an accident, instead of muttering a curse on the person who caused the feeling. I could be grateful to God for making me a living being with complex feelings instead of being angry that I was pulled out of relaxation.
Lent is a 40 day period because we remember that Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness after his baptism. He spent that time away from the distractions of the world, facing temptation. What I love about this season is that it's an opportunity for us to face our own demons head on. At St James, every year on Good Friday we have a tradition. We take a little slip of paper and write down something that we want to leave at the foot of the cross: something that we want Jesus to remove from us. A particular sin, a habit, an addiction, a personal failing, etc. Then early on Sunday morning at the Easter vigil, we burn those slips of paper in the new fire. Resurrection is what causes those things to no longer have power over us.
Maybe this is a time for you to think about what you would like to leave behind. Maybe during Lent you can think about the demons you want God to remove from your life, so that by the time Good Friday gets here, you can lay that burden down. That doesn't mean that the struggle will magically be over, but I think the symbolism is an important reminder that we don't have to let these things hold us down forever. We can let God work that power of resurrection in us. It may be a painful, scary process, but we know that love wins. The process of having a stony heart removed in place of a heart of flesh sounds painful. But a heart of stone can't love. In order for love to win, we need to let God do that work of changing our hearts.
Lent is here. Every year when I see that Lent is coming up, I think about what I'm going to give up, or take on. I've given up social media, I've stopped eating meat, I've tried to take on more prayer. This year, I was thinking about what I need to give up to be closer to God, especially as I begin meeting with my vocational discernment committee in the coming months. I decided to fast from social media again (how many minutes do I spend on Facebook and Instagram that could be spent in prayer?), but I also thought about my thought patterns and my actions.
I've written before about how I can, at times, feel like I hate people. As a matter of fact, one of my big struggles is saying or thinking to myself "God I hate people" and then immediately berating myself for thinking that way. Here's a prime example: I'm driving on the highway and someone cuts me off. I get mad, I yell, I say "ugh, f***ing people" or something to that effect... what's really going on here?
What happened is that person scared me. I was driving along, more or less chill, when someone startled me. Adrenaline rushed through my bloodstream and jarred me out of complacency. Do I hate that person, or people in general for doing that? No. I hate the feeling of being scared.
It's easier to take it out on "people" than to say "God, I hate being jarred out of my complacency!" I feel like saying that to God is funny in a way. God is constantly jarring us out of complacency. I really feel like that's one of the most important aspects of the Christian life. Recently a friend of mine shared this prayer from Archbishop Desmond Tutu that says it incredibly well:
Disturb us, O Lord
when we are too well-pleased with ourselves
when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little,
because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, O Lord
when with the abundance of things we possess,
we have lost our thirst for the water of life
when, having fallen in love with time,
we have ceased to dream of eternity
and in our efforts to build a new earth,
we have allowed our vision of Heaven to grow dim.
Stir us, O Lord
to dare more boldly, to venture into wider seas
where storms show Thy mastery,
where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars.
In the name of Him who pushed back the horizons of our hopes
and invited the brave to follow.
-Amen
Fear has far too often caused me to sail too close to the shore, to reach for easily attainable things, to be satisfied with the status quo. What would it look like to give up fear for Lent? Maybe I can't give up feeling afraid, but I could stop hating that feeling so much. Courage is about being afraid, but doing what you are called to do anyway in spite of the fear. Fear causes me to stay in a place of having a stony heart, when God wants a living, beating heart of flesh. Next time I feel that rush of fear when someone cuts me off, I could be grateful that the adrenaline saved me from getting into an accident, instead of muttering a curse on the person who caused the feeling. I could be grateful to God for making me a living being with complex feelings instead of being angry that I was pulled out of relaxation.
Heart mandala art from a workshop at the Hildegarden, 2017
Lent is a 40 day period because we remember that Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness after his baptism. He spent that time away from the distractions of the world, facing temptation. What I love about this season is that it's an opportunity for us to face our own demons head on. At St James, every year on Good Friday we have a tradition. We take a little slip of paper and write down something that we want to leave at the foot of the cross: something that we want Jesus to remove from us. A particular sin, a habit, an addiction, a personal failing, etc. Then early on Sunday morning at the Easter vigil, we burn those slips of paper in the new fire. Resurrection is what causes those things to no longer have power over us.
Maybe this is a time for you to think about what you would like to leave behind. Maybe during Lent you can think about the demons you want God to remove from your life, so that by the time Good Friday gets here, you can lay that burden down. That doesn't mean that the struggle will magically be over, but I think the symbolism is an important reminder that we don't have to let these things hold us down forever. We can let God work that power of resurrection in us. It may be a painful, scary process, but we know that love wins. The process of having a stony heart removed in place of a heart of flesh sounds painful. But a heart of stone can't love. In order for love to win, we need to let God do that work of changing our hearts.
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