Finding joy in Lent

Happy Lent! This year I am finding more joy in Lent than I have in the past. Perhaps I am simply allowing myself to feel more joy in a time that we traditionally believe is meant to be solemn and sober. I’m sure kicking the season off with the first ever St. John’s Staff music video – Better Together – has added to the unusually celebratory nature of the season. This was not an accident, by the way.

Yesterday evening we had our first Lenten Dinner, during which Jimmy led us in a discussion about God. We discussed the attributes of God (what we know about God) and the fairly heady concept of aseity (what God knows about God’s self) and God’s Economy (what God has revealed to us about God’s self.)

One of the most beautiful – and freeing – parts of our faith, for me, is the idea that God is revealing God’s self to us all the time. God is not contained in a single book or liturgy or theology or doctrine. God is so vast, omnipresent, and mysterious that anything is possible.

Jimmy challenged us to be open and curious about God. To challenge our ideas about the who or what or why of God.

And then we talked in small groups, and it was fascinating to hear the various perspectives and the emotions that arose – from excitement and joy, to fear and anxiety – and many emotions in between. And as I shared and I listened, I became very aware that God was revealing God’s self in that moment, in those interactions. It was a sacred moment.

We tend to surround ourselves with people who think and believe as we do. It is easy and comfortable. But one of the gifts of being a part of a community, like St. John’s, is that we don’t all see the world in the same way. And when we enter into conversation from a place of love, a recognition that we are all God’s beloved and that God is at work within and amongst us, we are able to open our hearts and minds and hear those differences and understand one another in new ways. And through those interactions, we can understand God in new ways.

I am the face of God to you and you are the face of God to me – and we are Better Together. Let’s celebrate that. Happy Lent, my friends!

Love, Mary