Dear Friends,

The season of opportunity, reorientation, and reflecting is about to come to rest gently upon us again. What are we to do? Give up one of the usual things we give up but otherwise plow on much as usual? Here is a way we might look at the coming weeks that does more than that: What if we imagine our lives as an expedition, perhaps like the Lewis and Clark expedition that Thomas Jefferson ordered to try to find a good route from sea to shining sea back in 1803?

At certain points in every major undertaking, we do well to stop and look at where we are, how we are, and how we are going about the task in hand. Perhaps, like Lewis and Clark, we may come to a point where we have to completely rethink the journey. On reaching the great Continental Divide and the headwaters of the Mississippi River, they had assumed all along that they would there find rivers flowing down to the Pacific Ocean. Instead all they could see were great mountain ranges! They had to rethink everything. 

Perhaps we are not at such a turning point, but, even if we are not, every journey needs periodic assessment and reflection. Lent is such an opportunity. To take it we have, I think, to do three things:

First, we have to stop. Well, we can’t stop living and working, of course, but we can create some space where we can stand still and reflect. Look at your weekly calendar for the next weeks following February 26 and ask yourself where you could block out some time for God and for yourself to be alone and reflect. If you are like me, if you don’t put it in your calendar, you simply won’t do it. 

Secondly, decide what you are going to do with that time. How will you answer those explorers’ vital questions: “Where am I?”, "How am I?”, and “Am I travelling the best way I can, or not?” All these questions are really about our relationship with God. Where and how am I in relation to Him? Am I travelling the way that is best for me and that God wants me to? So, take time to talk with God, walk with God, and listen to God.

• This Lent we are offering an outstanding Lenten Series on Tuesday evenings with a simple meal and activities for children, as well as a talk by some of the best theological minds in the country. Come to these to feed your mind and your soul if you can.
• This Lent, in addition to our regular pattern of Morning (7:30 a.m.) and Evening Prayer (5:30 p.m.), we are also celebrating a very simple 30-minute Eucharist at 12:00 noon each day, Monday through Friday.  If you work or live nearthe church, any of these this would be an excellent way of carving out just a short time to be with God each week. If you can commit to the Eucharist or a Daily Office every day, fantastic! If you can put two or three a week in your calendar and promise yourself that, wonderful! If you can only come to one Morning or Evening Prayer or daily Eucharist a week then that will be a chance to ask the explorers’ questions of your life as well.
• Maybe the church is just too far out of your way during the week to do any of that. So, meet God in the park, or a church near your work, or anywhere you can be on your own and quiet. Read one of the many scriptural guides that take you through Lent and the reflection that goes with it. I know Crystal is also doing something online for young women this Lent. There are many ways to pause and take stock on the journey.
• Alongside all this is our basic commitment in our Baptism and Confirmation vows to be faithful and regular in worshipping God Sunday by Sunday.  If we have slipped from that practice, Lent is a good time to get back into it. It doesn’t matter where we are, there are almost always churches to go to on the Lord’s Day. When we are in town, Christ Church has an empty seat waiting for us every Sunday.

Thirdly, I think the important thing is to be intentional about whatever we do. Plan ahead and it will happen. Put the meetings with God in your calendar, and you are more likely to keep the appointments. If we were as faithful to

those appointments as we are to our business and private ones, we would do better!

The key thing is that this is a blessing and not a curse! Repentance is about a change in direction that, after reflection, we decide, and want to take. It is for our good. Like the prodigal son, we arise and go back to our Father

who loves us and longs for us because we know in our hearts that that is where our lives are meant to be. More than that, the space we make for God in Lent is also space for us. Space to “be” rather than to “do.” Space to look at our expedition and ask if we are happy with how it is going, as well as if we think God is happy with it. If it has a challenging and hard edge to it, that is only because expeditions are dangerous and explorers’ lives depend on the choices they make.

Lent, if we truly enter into it, should be a refreshment as well as an assessment.  A time to live more, not less, to make our hearts and minds and bodies stronger, not to punish them for punishment’s sake, and a time to make more time for what is really important to us. 

So, when we all come to receive the ashes at one of the three services on Ash Wednesday, let us come ready to commit ourselves to a plan that we have made: a plan to reflect on the great expedition and a desire to be closer to the path that Christ has walked before us, so that we can be stronger, happier, and able to travel better.

May you plan a wonderful, refreshing, and Holy Lent,

The Reverend Timothy A. R. Cole, Rector