The Gospel lesson for the first Sunday in Lent is the Temptation in the Wilderness.
Piece one in the collage: I read these words by Sarah Parsons from the Upper Room site:
LENT BEGINS in the wilderness. … Even against our better judgment, we must begin these forty days [of Lent] by going alone to a wild place — in ourselves or in our lives. If we are fiercely honest with ourselves as we begin a Lenten journey toward greater openness, we must start by seeing things we would rather not see.
From p. 13 of A Clearing Season by Sarah Parsons. Copyright © 2005 by the author. Published by Upper Room Books. All Rights Reserved.
Those words could point us in so many directions. There are so many things we would rather not see; pain, poverty violence, ecological abuses, my own complicity in those injustices.
What are my own wilderness places? Making that list could be too severe even for Lent. I wrote earlier of prayer and honesty.
All of that melds with piece number two :
something I read last week in Wounded Prophet, A Portrait of Henri J.M. Nouwen.
it is citing The Inner Voice of Love by Nouwen; It too, is a call, the imperative of the wilderness. Does the wilderness honesty mean facing the wounds we would rather not see? Here is the quote: Live Your Wounds Through
You have been wounded in many ways. The more you open yourself to being healed, the more you will discover how deep your wounds are. You will be tempted to become discouraged, because under every wound you uncover you will find others. Your search for true healing will be a suffering search. Many tears still need to be shed.
But do not be afraid. The simple fact that you are more aware of your wounds shows that you have sufficient strength to face them.
The great challenge is living your wounds through instead of thinking them through. It is better to cry than to worry, better to feel your wounds deeply than to understand them, better to let them enter into your silence than to talk about them. The choice you face constantly is whether you are taking your hurts to your head or to your heart. In your head you can analyze them, find their causes and consequences, and coin words to speak and write about them. But no final healing is likely to come from that source. You need to let your wounds go down into your heart. Then you can live them through and discover that they will not destroy you. Your heart is greater than your wounds.
Third piece in this Lenten thought-collage came as Park church provided space for the Light of the Lakes UMC as they mourned the loss of a dear church member and leader in the life of their faith community and the Baxter business community. Nouwen has wisdom here in letting this hurt go to the 'heart." The head will offer no answer for the sudden death of man in his mid 50's. Believe, me after more than 250 funerals, for all ages; I have tried. It is one of my wounds.
It is wilderness. Go there. Jesus was there too. He left a way to follow it through. It is in the heart.
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