Amy Welborn is a contributor - five devotions per issue - to the Living Faith daily devotional .
What fears are keeping us from joy? Fear of unpleasant surprises, of change—no matter how difficult the present might be? What happens when we ask for the help we need? Might we look back at our resistance and wonder, What was I even thinking?
Lent, that most welcomed season of honest self-examination, begins in a few days. As one of those companions on the journey—Dorothy Day—a woman acutely aware of her own failings, yet also confident that the Lord’s work through her weakness was not in vain, encourages: This is Lent, and Lent is a wonderful time to begin again.
My son and I were going to hike a trail that I’d read was moderately challenging from a physical perspective. The real problem was, apparently, poison ivy, especially on the first quarter mile or so.
Just as we were about to begin, an older man emerged at the trailhead, sweaty, clad in running gear and holding clippers. We exchanged “good mornings” and went our separate ways.
The mention of another’s name brings to mind various aspects of their personality and identity but in a limited way, for we can never know another person completely, even ourselves. What a mystery we all are.
A couple of years ago, I lost all my rosemary bushes and a few azaleas in a freeze.
The problem was not the temperature itself, but the fact that it dropped so far so quickly: from the fifties to the teens over just a few hours. The plants couldn’t live through the rapid, dramatic change.
There is no lack of serious spiritual films, but lighter fare can offer insights too. Take the 1966 comedy “The Trouble with Angels.”
Jesus said and did many surprising, even revolutionary things, but this might be one of the most world-shaking. His call for us to be like children can, of course, prompt a great deal of fruitful meditation.
Is it a call to be open, trusting, curious?
To understand our dependence on the Father, to approach him aware of our need and with faith in his care for us?
It’s this: On the increasingly fewer occasions I drive an older car, I must consciously remind myself to actually look and heed—and have almost gotten into accidents a time or two when I’ve forgotten. Being carried along and protected by technology, I’ve become lazy and inattentive.
On a Sunday morning, my son developed a medical issue. It wasn’t terribly serious, but it did need attention—so off we went to the ER. We were the only patients when we arrived and, over the morning and early afternoon, were shuffled to various rooms in the bowels of the hospital. It was easy to believe that we were alone there in this situation of illness and discomfort.
Until we emerged to find rooms and even hallways crowded with young and old, some barely conscious, others clearly in pain
Jesus knew this. When he took his disciples on the mountain, he knew what was coming. Jesus’ gift of the Transfiguration to his disciples was about more than showing them the fullness of his identity. Strange, terrible and confounding events were about to unfold. Would this moment give them something to hold on to when all seemed lost?
Jesus has given us glimpses of light as well. Grateful, even in suffering, we remember.
So with the psalmist, I pray that I’m seeking the Lord with all my heart, and that prompts me to pause and ask myself—is that true? All my heart? Or am I actually seeking the Lord in the way I seem to do so much these days in this noisy, busy world: casually, sporadically, always half-thinking of what comes next?
On Ash Wednesday morning last year, I was in Putignano, Italy, looking for Mass. I found an open church with people sitting inside. I joined them. A man started lighting the altar candles. Mass must begin soon, I thought. But then what? Why is he lighting the paschal candle?
