Lent: Celebrate

The whole family was home for dinner today. There was no work, no play dates, no art, no internship.

There was beef stew. We called friends and put them on speakerphone so they could join us for a meal at a safe distance.

Dinner was loud, it was raucous, it was unruly. It was everything a family meal should be.

God, how I've missed this.

Lent: Listen

Sometimes I think that as writers we get so used to metaphor and symbolism that we forget that words have actual, primary meanings.

It's descriptive if I tell you that Kevin is a vulture. And if I tell you that he followed Ron patiently for hours, circling around as the other man looked for shelter, for assistance, for rescue; well, you know what sort of man Kevin is. And if I tell you that Kevin and his companions descended on Ron as soon as he fell, and didn't leave until they had picked his carcass clean, well that just settles the matter.

Lawyers can be awful people, and Kevin is Exhibit A why.

But words have literal meaning as well. A vulture is bird that eats carrion rather than hunting, and one that has the untoward habit of finding animals that aren't quite dead yet, and then waiting patiently. It's no wonder we use them to malign people we don't like.

Today's photo and word prompt is listen. This does not mean "understand a different point of view,' nor "imagine you are someone else," nor "put yourself in another's shoes." It means "engage in auditory practices that allow you to hear what someone else is saying, and process the meaning of those words."

Listen.

(It seems strange that someone would read a meditation on listening, and also that the word listen would be a prompt for photography, but here we are.)

Listen.

There were a thousand sounds assaulting my ears today, and a thousand messages demanding my attention. So many of them aimed to stoke fear. This virus will drive society to collapse -- buy a gun to protect yourself! Wear a mask! Don't come inside! We can't trust China! The economy is collapsing! The president is an idiot! The media are lying to you!

Listen.

Today I listened to a quieter voice that led me outside. I dug up some of the day lilies that came from my great-grandparents' farm in Cambria Mills, and I moved them to the back yard. I cleaned up trash. I prepared the earth where I intend to plant lettuce, peas and spinach in the next few days. I pulled up weeds.

I listened.

There were no butterflies yet to eavesdrop on, but I did hear a few birds, quietly singing to themselves in the maples. My neighbor was preparing his motorbike for riding weather, and i listened  as it roared its triumph across the neighborhood, I listened as a man stood on the sidewalk across the street and told a woman in her house what supplies he had bought and left on the porch for her.

I listened, and I heard the sound of a new spring unfolding; of life continuing in its familiar routines, however altered; and I heard the soft declarations of compassion, love and basic decency from one human to another.

We're all weighed down right now, sometimes for fear of what the next few weeks will bring; sometimes by the oppressive loneliness of being stranded at home when we want to be at work, at school, or at play; and sometimes by other worries and anxieties we either don't know how or are reluctant to express.

If that's you, reach out. A burden shared is a burden lightened. Talk with me.

I'll listen.

Lent: See

Eyesight seems so arbitrary.

A few days ago I was at the park with a group from my social work agency. As I was pushing him on the swing and talking with him, one of our child clients saw something that caused him distress.

'That's a bad word someone wrote over there," he said.

"Where?" I asked.

"Don't you see it?"

"No."

We kept at this for way longer than was necessary, and the boy became more and more agitated that I couldn't see what he did. I tried explaining about different lines of sight, unclear directions, all the things there were at a park where something could be written.

None of it made a difference. He was distressed that I couldn't see something that he found blindingly obvious. At one point he despaired there was something wrong with him for seeing things other people couldn't, and then I saw it.

One of our local artists had tagged some of the playground equipment in spraypaint with the letters A-S-S.

A little older and more jaded about urban graffiti than my companion, I didn't share his moral umbrage but our patience had paid off. At least we both saw the same thing.

It seems sometimes these days that we all agree there's only one right way to see things -- and it's not the way those other people see it. We fight like crazy, call each other names,and try to argue one another into seeing things the way we do. In the end we're further than ever from agreement, and we often walk away from fracases, head held high, chip on shoulder, convinced of our rightness more than ever and viewing our opposition with disdain and contempt.

Maybe we're doing this wrong.

Maybe we see things differently, big stuff, little stuff and even foundational stuff, because we're meant to.

The writers of the Hebrew Scriptures depicted heaven as a court where God would make a declaration, and one of the angels would take an opposing view. In the ensuing debate, deeper truths would emerge that everyone could see, agree to, and support.

There's no suggestion from Scripture that God took affront to what arguably was a challenge to his own wisdom. There's no indication that God did anything but consider the adversarial viewpoint, give the other party a chance to make his case, and then weigh those arguments and their supporting evidence on their own merits.

No, we probably won't change anyone's mind this way. But if we take the time to see things from one another's eyes, we can end a lot of division and heartache, and we can all grow a little wiser in the process.


Copyright © 2020 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Lent: Sent

I got this magazine in the mail, as I have almost every month for the past 30 years.

It's not that I'm a raging "Reader's Digest" fan. My mother signed me up for a gift subscription when I moved out, and she's renewed the subscription every year. And so, every month, it gets sent to me.

I doubt very much that the magazine is conscious of what drove my mother to send me a subscription. For my part, I scarcely think of what actions follow this decision: the invoicing, the postage, the sorting, the department budgets fueled and funded by other subscriptions and sales, and the advertising that depends on those other numbers to succeed. Nor do I imagine the magazine is aware of its reception, that my daughter often has been the first to see it, first to remove its plastic wrapper, first to read whatever section appeals to her.

I just open the mailbox,and there it is, a fading relic of American right-of-center values, an unstated reminder that mom cares and is staying connected with us. Sent as ordered,  and duly received to fulfil its purpose.

Lent: Light

Sleep is no comfort to the well-rested,
Water brings no relief to those who are not thirsty.
Food has no use for the well-fed,
And more light is wasted on those who live in the sun.

Do not begrudge the weary a moment of sleep.
Give a drink and more to those who are parched.
Give your bread to the hungry, and your meat too.
And light a match in the darkest places.

Lent: Revealed

About 30 years ago, I woke my roommate up talking i my sleep.

I'd been reading the "The Brothers Karamazov," and was trying to figure out which of the two main suspects it was who had killed old Karamazov, and why. I'd been knee-deep in the novel for two weeks, and it was driving me nuts.

The reveal is one of the great things about mysteries. Who can watch "The Unicorn and the Wasp' and not want to know who tried to kill Donna, poison the Doctor and murder Lady Eddison's son? For that matter, who can read any Agatha Christie novel and not wait for the moment when the killer is unmasked and brought to justice? We all love it when the truth comes out.

Lent is meant to be a period of reveals. Certainly its focus on fasts is meant to bring us to a place where we are open to experiencing the transcendent through incremental revelations and gains in understanding. But any time of contemplation also leads us to understand ourselves better.

There's a story told in these parts about a man who hid himself so well that no one knew who he was, not even he himself. But he grew in understanding and in time his commitment to the truth revealed not only who he was, but everyone else as well.

The truth, once revealed, set people free.

What truth is revealed about and within you?

Lent: Celebrate

Here's a neat little observation about celebrations: They always require other people

Fourth of July cookouts. Bat mitzvahs. Graduation parties. Thanksgiving dinner. Wedding receptions. They all involve food, but more importantly they include the presence of loved ones.

You don't even need a reason. Just gather some friends and some family around, and enjoy one another's company. You'll celebrate in no time.

Lent: Fruit

Fruit is an odd photo prompt for mid-March. We still have six weeks to go until last frost in this state. We're just getting started planting cold weather crops like lettuce and peas. Fruit won't grow on the trees until July.

These little fellows came here from Mexico. My daughter likes to snack on them, and I was able to get them at the store on Tuesday before the leagues started canceling games and everyone started to realize how ill-prepared we were for a pandemic.

The rush on stores the past several days are fruit too, born of the seeds we planted months and years ago, to elect someone unqualified for office, to wait idly by when news of the virus first surfaced in China, not to store items sooner, not to store our own surplus produce from last summer's garden, not to garden at all.

Every moment of our lives, we sow the seeds of the future. Every moment we harvest the fruit of the seeds we sowed in the past, or that others sowed before us.

Sometimes the seed fails, and other times it's a bumper crop we'll be eating for years to come.


Copyright © 2020 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Lent: Work

Lots to do this coming week, There's paperwork to catch up on for my internship, assignments coming due for class, and projects that while not due yet, are now visible on the horizon.

Then there's the never-ending procession of work and projects that happen when you live in New Jersey have a family, and own a house. It never stops.

And then there are the other thing we do, to give life meaning and purpose.

Work is a good thing. It was one of the first gifts given in Paradise.

Work while it is still light; night is coming when no one can work.


Copyright © 2020 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Lent: Seeks

There’s a saying attributed to Jesus in the gospels that goes like this: Seek and you shall find; knock, and the door will be opened; ask, and the gift shall be given.”

It all begins with our determination to seek. An old woman tears apart her house looking for the money she’d planned to live off in her old age. A jeweler looks for the deal of a lifetime. A heartsick father goes searching highways and ditches for his headstrong absent child.

The tricky thing about seeking is that what we think we're looking for and what we find aren't always the same thing. We tell everyone we want to climb the mountain; we may even describe with fascination the road to the peak and the wonders that wait at the top. But all the while, our feet tell a different story; the path we choose day to day takes us to the beach instead of even to the foothills.

Why the discrepancy? It's a question many of us face halfway to the finish line. Maybe we really do want to stand above the snowline and plant our flag there, in which case we need to make major changes and reset our daily priorities in order to realize our dreams. Maybe we once desired the blazing glory of the mountaintop but have a discovered a softer glory in obscurity. Or maybe we still want it, but have lost our way and are fighting a contrary current to push our way back and seek what was lost before it's too late and opportunity is gone forever.

What is it you seek? And are you seeking it in such a way that it will be found?


Copyright © 2020 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Lent: Spring

Down by the foot of our driveway is a maple tree growing on a small strip of grass between the sidewalk and the road on an easement the city owns that runs through our front yard.

The tree is about fifteen high, with a canopy that spreads over our flower bed, our driveway and the neighbor's, and a piece segment of the road big enough to park a car under, during the summer. Part of this spread is because, about 6 feet from the ground, the tree trunk forks into three co-dominant stems, and each segment grows about 120 degrees from each of its sisters.

Or they used to. About nine years ago, Hurricane Irene came through the area, canceling flights, flooding low-lying areas and generally being a hurricane. A week after the storm had passed, the old girl dropped one of her three stems, kerplunk, right onto the road.

The city (eventually) came and carted the fallen branch away, and in the nine years since, the tree has continued to grow new leaves every spring, stretch its arms out a little wider and stand a little taller ... as the wound where the missing stem grew becomes a little worse, and more and more of the lesser branches on the surviving stems wither and die under the strain.

We always think of spring as a time of new beginnings and renewal, but that's a hollow promise to some. It must be awful when you don't know you're already dead.


Copyright © 2020 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Valley of Dry Bones

 If you had ten minutes to talk with any one person in the Bible, whom would you talk to?

Would you talk theology with Paul? Ask Jesus to explain why it has to hurt so much? Maybe you'd ask Joshua what it was like to see the walls of Jericho fall, or Moses how he felt to see Pharaoh's army drown and know that Israel was really and finally free.

Go ahead and ask David to talk about courage, or ask Daniel about lions. I want to hear what they tell you. As for me, I want to talk to one of those nameless multitudes in Ezekiel's valley.

"What was it like?" I want to ask. "How did you end up in the valley? Did someone lead you there, or was it just an accident? Were all those other people with you, or did you think you were going there by yourself?"

And what was it like in the valley? It seems like such a desolate place by the time Ezekiel found it, but what did it look like when you arrived? Did you stay because it seemed beautiful, or was it so barren that you just gave up?

It must have been a dreadful experience being dead in a place like that. All around you are neighbors with stories like your own, but it's impossible to share them because birds have eaten the tongue you once used to tell them, and you've lost the ears that would have understood anything that was spoken.

So you just lay there in the valley, as the the sun slowly rises in the east, inches his way across the sky, and then goes to sleep at night. Years pass that way until all your flesh has blown away; your bones are bleached and white, picked clean by worms; and you lie there forgotten even to yourself, no name, no story, not even a clear claim to which bones are yours and which belong to your neighbor.

Until one day that man appeared in the valley, and impossible things happened. The valley shook, the rattling of bones echoed from the hills, and the legions of the dead remembered who they were. Shins to femurs. Femurs to hips. Vertebra to vertebra. All across the ground, dust swirled, organs grew, sinews knitted themselves once more to frames, skin stretched itself over bodies, and the bodies stood and to a one, they all remembered how to breathe.

Tell me about that moment. Everything else I want to know pales in comparison.

Lent: Drink

A walk in the woods never seems too bad when you're starting early enough. With the birds providing accompaniment to the rising sun and the air still heavy with dew, it's easy to feel the worst part isn't the thought of a few more stolen moments under the covers, but that annoying fellow nearby who keeps singing "Here Comes the Sun" and cheerfully mangling the words.

And you set out, the mist still hanging over the trail and snaking through the ferns, your spirits are high. Who can blame you for singing every Eagles song you can think of, from "Lyin' Eyes" and "Take It Easy" on down through "Take it to the Limit."

But after a while, silence sounds nice too. So you give your throat a rest, and you keep walking. You're still feeling fine, and the hike is easy; but it's a quiet time now. A more thoughtful time.

By noon your feet are feeling tired, your legs are a little sore, and though it's not time to stop, efforts to buoy the spirit with a few Beatles songs failed. For the life of you, you don't remember the second verse to "Yellow Submarine," can't think of how "Nowhere Man" starts and every time you start on one of the classic early Beatles songs, you start wondering what it means when Paul McCartney said he was the walrus.

When it turns two o'clock, you're sweating so profusely that your shirt sticks to you like a second skin. It's the heat of the day. You keep wiping the sweat from your eyes with you arm, but it doesn't make a difference. It just keeps coming in rivulets that leave you irritated and grouch at everyone you think of.

By three in the afternoon your head hurts, your throat is too sore to sing even if you wanted, and your entire body feels jostled about, You're walking,but it's on automatic. You're no longer sweating; you're just hot, and your skin feels too tight. Your eye is starting to twitch.

And then at four, someone hands you a glass of water. It is the most wonderful thing you have ever had,

You open your mouth and pour the water in. Half of it falls on your dried and dirty shirt, but you don't care. It tastes like standing outside in rainfall, and every drop that you drink explodes inside you like sunlight. The second glass is even better than the first, and the third is like the second. Your mind sharpens, your limbs surge with vitality, and at once you want to laugh, and dance and sing.

To the thirsty, a drink of water is like health to the dying. It's a new chapter in a favorite book, a gift of laughter to the lonely.

Drink your fill.

#rethinkchurch

Lent: Journey

Was it the years, or the mileage?

It was a question the pilgrim had asked himself more times than he could count. There was the night he had fled his city, driven half-mad with a desire to leave, spurred on by the words of the stranger who had come to town: “Flee the wrath that is to come.”

He had walked through one pair of shoes after another, until finally the soles of his feet themselves were as thick as any shoe’s he had owned, so perhaps it was the miles. The road had led him ever onward, over hill and dale, through strange terrain, through strange lands, until his legs which had ached with the distance no longer ached even at the thought of what was to come. 

On the other hand, maybe it was the years for the journey had aged the pilgrim more than he had expected it would. There were the expected challenges like the sand pit, but he’d also faced horrors that had crawled out of his worst nightmares when he’d passed through the Valley of Shadows. He’d arrived at waystations as the sun had set, and slept; but when he woke in the morning the hostels were gone and in their place he was left with visions that left him with a lingering foreboding. 

And of course there had been the long and thirsty night deep in the forest with the enchantress by the well. She’d offered him a drink, if only he’d sign his name in her guest book first. 

It had been a long journey, and it still wasn’t at an end. More years awaited the pilgrim on the road, and so did the miles. His final destination, always on his mind, still seemed as distant as it did the day he’d begun. 

He knew he’d make it there, eventually, the same way he’d started. 

One step, and one day, at a time. 

#rethinkchurch.

Lent: Celebrate

Lent often is associated with foregoing pleasures and some manner of fast -- no meat on Fridays, if you're Catholic; and none on Wednesdays either, if you're a traditional Catholic -- but Sunday is always a day for celebration.

Our lives are rounded out with celebrations, and we mark those celebrations with the food that we eat.

We enter the world to celebration. We drink our mothers' milk while our families feed on meals provided by supportive friends.

Each year we celebrate our lives with cake and choice foods.

We round out our holidays and holy days with the foods that have been selected by our elders. Bitter herbs, corn on the cob and roast turkey.

And when the time comes for us to leave, our loved ones gather around to celebrate our lives with one last feast in our honor.

The life we are given is good, and we celebrate it together with good food, in good abundance. The Hebrew Bible is filled with feasts of Trumpets, tabernacles, first grains and more. The Kingdom of God is a celebration with food, music and dancing, not a joyless and spartan affair.

Fill your plate and raise your glass. Celebrate!


Copyright © 2020 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Lent: Saved

There’s a great scene in Terry Pratchett’s “Mort” where Death, on a fishing holiday, pulls another fisherman from the river before he can drown. The man is grateful, but confused by Death’s parting words. “What did he mean by ‘Save you for later?’”

Savings aren’t just about rescuing in the here and now. They’re also about savoring hereafter. We save money and forego immediate gratification now to pay for expensive things later: a gift, a vacation, an overdue visit to a friend.

The rescue matters now: the fisherman does not drown, the money doesn’t go to waste, the opportunity is not squandered. But when there’s saving involved, you can bet there’s a longtime benefit, deep satisfaction and real enjoyment on the way.


Copyright © 2020 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Lent: Testify

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty once famously told Alice, "it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less."

My daughter has taken this to heart. She insists it's not a problem, and usually it's not. People will figure out that you mean "sweatshirt" even though you keep calling it a "sweater," but if you start referring to trucks as cars, computers as elephants and left as right, you're going to sow a lot of semantic anarchy.

We testify about what we know and to what we have seen, but our testimony as only reliable as our words. Even if we're not shameless liars who let the moment's impulse trump the truth on a regular basis, the words we use can affect our testimony. Clumsy word choice, an unusual or unexpected point of view, lubricational slang, or an unfamiliar language -- they can all affect how our message is received and whether our testimony is understood.

Another thing about testimony. Whatever we offer, and how we offer it, stands as a testament about us. What does our testimony say, when we testify to what we know?


Copyright © 2020 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Lent: Teacher

The best, most memorable teachers I’ve had generally didn’t impart knowledge.

Sometimes they’ve shared an insight or an observation, but mostly what they do is state the blindingly obvious in such a way that we’re drawn up short and realize “I never thought of it that way.” When they're really good, they don't even do that. They just ask a question, and we do the rest of the work for them.

What teachers teach is not information, nor even a new perspective, but a way of finding both. As that lesson slowly sinks in, we grow aware of how we think, and how how we think limits our thinking.

In the end the best teachers grow silent and let us learn on our own and from our fellow students and journeymen.

May your life by a lifetime of learning and a lifetime of teaching. And in the end, aren’t they the same?


Copyright © 2020 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Lent: Spirit

The wind comes like the breath of a lion, and leaves with the sigh of a lamb. We hear it approach, and we feel it come upon us; but we can mark neither its coming nor its going.

Buds swell in the spring and soon burst into flowers and leaves, and then branches hang heavy with fruit. In the morning breath fills the lungs of us all, beast and human alike. When night comes breath departs and the flesh grows still, yet no one knows where the breath has gone.

Flesh is born of flesh and returns to dust, but spirit is born of spirit and with spirit evermore remains.

Will these bones rise and dance, and will the dust echo once more with the music of singing? The spirit blows where it will, and we must answer.


Copyright © 2020 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Lent: Enter

Sometimes it seems like doors should come with an advisory label,

Doors mark the transition between one place and another. Cross the threshold and everything changes. You may go from a confident teen in her own space to a daughter trying to navigate a web of complicate relationships with parents and siblings; or from a confident educator to a nervous adult all alone with 20 hostile children. On this side of the door you're one thing; on the other side, you may be something entirely different.

And yet it's precisely the change waiting on the other side that makes a door so alluring. So many stories begin with the decision to go through a door. Richard Mayhew goes through a door and finds himself in an unfamiliar London with black friars, velvets, a floating market and a Down Street that leads to the Angel Islington. The Pevensie children enter a wardrobe and find themselves in a land where it's been winter for a hundred years. Bilbo walks out his front door and finds himself on a road that leads to the Lonely Mountain, self-discovery, and a ring, the least of all rings, merely a trifle that Sauron fancies.

Doors are an invitation to explore in ways that mere hallways and open spaces are not, and Opportunity waits on the other side to help us grow, to transform us, and to make us beautiful.

The door was shut, but now as you stand there, it opens and a loud Voice calls out "Enter!"

The adventure of a lifetime awaits. The choice is yours.


Copyright © 2020 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Lent: Signs

Hundreds of years ago, ravens developed a reputation as birds of ill omen. The birds, which feast on carrion, had discovered that when armies of humans moved with horses and siege engines, they would lead the birds to a massive picnic.

The peasants on the ground would look up at the sky darkening with blackbirds and shudder as they felt death gather its cloak around the countryside. Like the ravens, they had learned to recognize the signs and knew what they meant.

Signs are shy on details but good as general indicators for what's to come. When the clouds grow heavy, we know it's going to rain; when people stop going out to eat, we know the economy is going to shrink; and when the first tender shoots of flowers burst through the mulch we know spring is near.

Red in the morning is a shepherd's warning. A cold wind from the northeast brings heavy rain. God keeps the particulars to himself, but he has painted signs of his purpose on heaven and earth and on the canvas of the human heart.

Open your eyes and open your ears. What signs do you see, and what are they telling you?


Copyright © 2020 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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Lent — Celebrate

Got a flat on the way to church today. Disappointing. It’s the sort of thing to put a Pollyanna gloss on and pretend it’s a blessing in disguise and cause to celebrate. But it’s not. It’s just annoying.

AAA sent a tow truck driver who was there in 30 minutes and knew a place that was open and could fix me up. Convenient, nice. Not a celebration.

Sundays are days of celebration, even amid the Lenten fast. God wants to eat well, to drink well, to party and to celebrate like the match that flares to life and drives back the darkness. We live! We love! God draws near! Celebrate.


Copyright © 2020 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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