(Ash Wednesday and Lent)
Yesterday marked the beginning of Lent with Ash Wednesday. As I was reflecting on this Lenten season and what I wanted to get out of it, I initially only thought of myself and how I could use this time to engage in some much needed reflection and preparation to continually embrace who God calls me to be as her created image and the witness I have to live out in the world. But as I thought more about it I realized that my vocation is grounded in a giving of myself through a love that wants to see all come to embrace who they are, who God is, and how we live in light of these beautiful mysteries. So, I have decided to make one of my Lenten promises sharing at least one moment of each day where I was aware of the Holy/Sacred/Divine (fill in with your word of choice) presence with anyone who reads this blog. The reality is that every breath, every vision, every sound, every touch is holy and sacred, but we are not always mindful of the presence of God in each moment. So this is an attempt to awaken myself and hopefully encourage all of you too to the constant presence of the divine within and among us.
Ash Wednesday - 17/2/2010
I spent some beautiful, grace filled time outside in our back patio watching the birds hop and fly around, staring at the green of the plants, the blue of the sky, the white of the clouds, and enjoying the simplicity of joy that this peaceful time of presence and observation brought me. I was reminded of the scripture passage that the birds of the air and the lilies of the field do not worry and receive what they need from the earth. And the earth too has provided us human animals, like all other animals, with all we need to survive. We have food, water, and materials to build and create. But we forget this simple and ancient wisdom; we abuse and reject this freely given gift. And so from trying to make ourselves into gods, into rulers of the earth, we have brought about our own worry and toil in the scarcity of food, clean water, and natural resources and divide up what is left amongst the rich and powerful. I am reminded of Eduardo Galeano's words in decribing Latin America: "...we Latin Americans are poor because the ground we tread is rich, and [the] places priviledge by nature have been cursed by history." What is meant to last decades upon decades is used up in a matter of years for pure greed and profit and the land is left raped and deserted like many of the people who worked the land and were worked by the hungry machine of the corporation. The wisdom of the passage about the birds and the flowers is that God has already always given us what we need, we just need to be aware and start living in harmony with all of life and there is a lot of work to do to heal our Mother Earth and our sacred body.
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