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Some lenten thoughts…

March 27, 2006 by Chad Herring Leave a Comment

A pastor friend of mine sends out an evotional (e-devotional, if you will), and reminds me of these words from Frederick Buechner’s Whistling in the Dark:

In many cultures there is an ancient custom of giving a tenth of each year’s income to some holy use. For Christians, to observe the forty days of Lent is to do the same thing with roughly a tenth of each year’s days. After being baptized by John in the river Jordan, Jesus went off alone into the wilderness where he spent forty days asking himself the question what it meant to be Jesus. During Lent, Christians are supposed to ask one way or another what it means to be themselves:

  • If you had to bet everything you have on whether there is a God or whether there isn’t, which side would you bet your money and why?
  • When you look at your face in the mirror, what do you see in it that you most like and what do you see in it that you most deplore?
  • If you only had one last message to leave to the handful of people who are most important to you, what would it be in 25 words or less?
  • Of all the things you have done in your life, which is the one you would most like to undo? Which is the one that makes you happiest to remember?
  • Is there any person in the world, or any cause, that, if circumstances called for it, you would be willing to die for?
  • If this were the last day of your life, what would you do with it?

Buechner concludes: “To hear yourself try to answer questions like these is to begin to hear something not only of who you are but what you are becoming and what you are failing to become. It can be pretty depressing business all in all, but if sackcloth and ashes are at the start of it, something like Easter is at the end.”

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Filed Under: theology Tagged With: faith, lent

A Fast for Lent…

March 1, 2006 by Chad Herring 1 Comment

From the Ash Wednesday lectionary reading, Isaiah 58:6-12 (The Message):

6“This is the kind of fast day I’m after:
to break the chains of injustice,
get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
free the oppressed,
cancel debts.

7What I’m interested in seeing you do is:
sharing your food with the hungry,
inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
being available to your own families.

8Do this and the lights will turn on,
and your lives will turn around at once.
Your righteousness will pave your way.
The GOD of glory will secure your passage.

9Then when you pray, GOD will answer.
You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, “Here I am.’
“If you get rid of unfair practices,
quit blaming victims,
quit gossiping about other people’s sins,

10 If you are generous with the hungry
and start giving yourselves to the down–and-out,
Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness,
your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.

11I will always show you where to go.
I’ll give you a full life in the emptiest of places–
firm muscles, strong bones.
You’ll be like a well-watered garden,
a gurgling spring that never runs dry.

12You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew,
rebuild the foundations from out of your past.
You’ll be known as those who can fix anything,
restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate,
make the community livable again.

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Filed Under: theology Tagged With: lent

Chad Andrew Herring

Chad Herring

kairos :: creature of dust :: child of God :: husband of 21 years :: father of 2 :: teaching elder/minister of word and sacrament in the presbyterian church (u.s.a.) :: exploring a progressive-reformed – emergent-christianity :: more

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