Monday, February 23, 2009

Adding Something for Lent

This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the Lenten season. To the average non-Christian, this season really doesn't hold much meaning, aside from Madi Gras and Fat Tuesday. To those who are Christians or "churchians" (my word for those who aren't really committed to a church but attend on an infrequent basis and/or had attended some when they were kids), the season of Lent is understood to hold some type of spiritual preparational significance for Good Friday and then comes to a climax with Easter.

Most Christians will attend an Ash Wednesday service this Wednesday, saying some type of liturgy and prayer with the people that have gathered (usually small), and then will walk to the front of the church to have their priest or pastor make the sign of the cross on their forehead with ashes as a reminder that they belong to Christ through their act of confession and repentance to Him.

But I have noticed that Lent has taken on more of a "New Years resolution" feel to it among many people who observe the season. It is seen, if not primarily, at least additionally, as a time to give up something "for the Lord," to try to start over on what you had resolved at the beginning of the new year that you were going to change, usually by giving up something. I hear people talk about giving up chocolate for Lent, sodas, TV, smoking, certain sweets, even sex. But what I never hear is what someone is going to try to "add" to their life during this season. That realization has intrigued me over the last few days.

I haven't been much different. Every Lenten season I determine to give up stuff, like limiting my TV watching, giving up Mountain Dew, cutting back on my sugar intake, dieting more consistently. But this Lenten season, I'm approaching it from a different direction. This year, I'm adding to my life, I'm taking on some things in the hope that it will deepen my life and make it richer on a spiritual and emotional level.

Let me give you some examples of a few additions I want to make. Every Ash Wednesday we stand at the front of the church and the pastor makes the sign of the cross on our foreheads with ash. But other than that, most of us in the protastent tradition never do much with making the sign of the cross. The Catholics do it, a lot, but we Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Evangelicals, etc, don't do it. And yet, the making of the sign of the cross has deep roots in being a symbol, that when I make the sign of the cross on my body, I am reminding myself that I have been crucified with Christ and that I now live in Him. So, for this Lent, I am going to add the sign of the cross to my actions through out the day. I realize this will probably raise some eyebrows among some folks, including my church people, but I'll simply explain it if asked. There was a period of time in my life when I did do this but for some reason I got out of the habit.

Another addition is to learn and incorporate into my devotional time the practice of Lectio Divina, the practice of the "slow, contemplative praying of the Scriptures which enables the Bible, the Word of God, to become a means of union with God" (a good book that I am reading about this is by Eugene H. Peterson, Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading). I tend to sit down and read a passage of Scripture with the idea of, "OK God, what can I get out of this today?" The problem is, I'm not the most patient guy when it comes to this and if, after some reading, praying, and thinking, I don't "get something," I'm ready to move on. Lectio Divina involves more imagination, more of an "ears open, mouth shut" approach. It demands that I take more time to read and reread, to let the passage "flood over me"; for me, it's like slowly working your way into a cold lake - my body has to get used to the chill before I'm able to swim around in the water. That's what I want when it comes to reading God's "living Word," to be able to swim around in it, to become part of the passage because it has become a part of me.

A third addition is something I already do but I am very inconsistant in it and that is journal writting. I do it every few weeks, sometimes even a month or two will go by before I sit down and journal, and when I do, it usually has more to do with some "crises" or emotional meltdown than reflecting on my spiritual pilgrimage, discovery, and growth. Again, to do this means making time to sit, reflect, read, meditate, and then write.

There a few other things that I probably will try to add to my spiritual life but there are also more "emotional" and "social" things I need to add. Like, making a more concerted effort to connect with people that I meet day to day in my life; to express more of God's love to others by saying kind and uplifting words to them; to be outgoing in my sharing Christ with others; to be more patient with others, especially my family... I think you catch my drift.

What will our lives become if we were to add to our lives things along the lines of the above? I challenged one friend, who "believes in God" but thinks that their are many ways to God to take the next few weeks to really sit down and read God's "Word"; to determine for himself whether Jesus was just a "good man," "a mad man," or "the Son of God." What if we were truly willing to do more than just be content with where we are in life, content with our current level of "spirituality," content with the ways we show respect, encouragement, and love to others. How dramtically would our lives, and the lives of those around us, be transformed and blessed? Wouldn't be way cool to find out?

Friday, February 20, 2009

Faceless on Facebook

I recently joined up Facebook. A friend invited me to join and I figured that if he joined then I should join. I had no interest up to that point. In fact, I will admit to you that I deliberately resisted joining Facebook because I just felt a little uneasy about it. I also resisted joining MySpace until my kids told me to sign up and I held for sometime. But I finally broke down. I haven't been back to MySpace in months. I got bored with it.

My problem with Facebook and MySpace, and other services like them, is that they seem so impersonal to me. In most cases you are able to see the person whose "site" you have been accepted to but not always. Sometimes you see things that you would rather not see - scary, frightful visions of these people you thought you knew. You read things that surprises you - words, phrases and statements that make you wonder just who this person really is and why are they posting such things.

Sometimes I have been a little stunned, no, shocked, at seeing more than I really want to, or should, see. I can't help wonder if they have any clue what kind of impression they are leaving. And then I realize, they don't care.

The problem with these "connection" sites is that you really don't know if you are "seeing" the real person. It's very different, very shallow, compared to being able to talk on the phone or sit across from each other and have a conversation. I mean, a real conversation with eye contact, voice inflections, body language. "Conversing" over the Internet is like talking to someone about a picture you are looking at and having them draw it simply from your description while not being able to look at the same picture. You usually get some pretty crazy pictures.

Case in point: my daughter Haley was having a conversation with her mom via texting. Mom was out of town and daughter was having some "pain" issues. Mom was texting something about being sorry about not being here to comfort her and daughter texted back and wrote, "I know but your not mom." Now, there ensued a slight misunderstanding about what daughter had wrote, since punctuation has gone out the window with texting, and Mom felt like daughter was saying that she wasn't a mom because she wasn't there to care for her daughter.

Got that?

Now, maybe I'm just being "old fashioned" and unwilling to accept the changes coming our way in the 21st century. Possibly, though I think I keep up pretty well. My problem is that texting and connecting via the Internet has taken the place of warm blooded, personal, exposing myself just a little with you, conversation. It's harder to determine what's real in a relationship through the computer or simply words on a small phone screen. (By the way, if I have anything to say beyond two or three words when I text, I call.)

I had someone invite me to be their friend the other day. I didn't know who they were. I wrote to them and said so. They wrote back and said we had a connection with a mutual friend. When I checked their "friends," they had over 3000 friends. I decided that the invitation to be their friend was more in hopes of me joining the ever growing statistics of friends they were accumulating and not out of a sincere desire to "reconnect" with an old friend. So I declined.

On the other hand, since joining Facebook, I have in fact reconnected with some old high school and college friends that I had lost contact with over the years due to time, distance, and moves. It's been rather exciting to "chat" and slowly catch up, even more exciting to actually call each other and talk, hearing their voice, laughing together, sharing joys and disappointments. All that was missing was a fireplace and a beverage.

All I am saying is that I really wonder just how interested people are about what I might be doing just at this moment (Jim is....fill in the bland for the moment). Though I know I am interested in knowing what my friends and family are up to in life, what they like to read, what jobs the have, where they are and how their families have grown, I'm wondering if we aren't bordering of narcissism when we chart our every moment on the web for people to see. Are we really connecting? We have a generation or two that have become so engulfed in this technology that their interpersonal skill have developed at a snails pace. They crave intimacy but don't know how to develop healthy relationships. As one character states in the movie He's Just Not That Into You, "I had this guy leave me a voicemail at home so I called him at work, he emailed me to my Blackberry, so I texted to his cell, and now you have to just go around checking all these portals just to get rejected by 7 different technologies. It's exhausting."

I do find all these new ways of "connecting" exhausting at times. And often so impersonal. But I do it anyway. Go figure.

"Jim is.... finished writing this post."