journeylent

A very talented, cool, collection of folks have agreed to collaborate in a online Lenten bolg entitled journeylent. Not all of the contributors are from Journey, they just agreed to help us have a wonderfully broad, expansive, diverse approach to what is like to walk together through these days. I had the privilege of writing today's entry...you can go to the link above or find if here...

also...the grandpappy, and in my opinion, still the best of all of Lenten journals is Uncle Milty's at don't eat alone

Fasting slowly...

I grew up in South Louisiana...Baton Rouge, to be exact, with devout Roman Catholics making up one-side of my family and uninvolved Southern Baptists on the other. Cajun country is predominantly Roman Catholic demographically, and I saw, not only my friends, but my relatives go nuts on Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras), and emerge solemnly (and often with massive hangovers) on Ash Wednesday with smudgy foreheads and a begrudged promise to give up something they loved for the 40 days of Lent. Shelton and I have talked about the propensity for most of our Southern Baptist (and frankly, many evangelicals) brothers and sisters to sneer at those Catholics and mainline denominations as needlessly dour during this time, because we blow right past Lent to the payoff, which is Easter...Resurrection... WooHoo...God Wins...why did we ever let the Mardi Gras floats go home...let's keep this party happening!

I hope you took the time to view the video that Bob Carlton posted yesterday (that he compiled and edited and included the marvelously sketched "40") which chronicled Jesus' fasting and temptation in the desert. That is the place the church gleaned the idea of fasting (purposely refraining from partaking or participating in an activity to concentrate on listening to God) during the 40 days of Lent. Fasting, of course, has been used down through the centuries for everything from weight loss, body-system cleansing, political protest, and spiritual oneupmanship, but there is no discounting its powerful place in the inner disciplines of the spirit life. Check at your school or your office and you will find the objects being fasted from are both diverse and weirdly creative. Chocolate...watching Oprah...forcing yourself to watch Oprah...not wearing a watch, not watching Sports Center every night before bed, riding a bike to work instead of driving, not using deodorant, not nagging your kids, cleaning your room every day if you are a kid...you get the picture. Last Sunday, Rick told us that he was going to ask us to fast from something different each week. This past week it was fasting from the need for everything to make sense. Sheeesh...that is hitting below the belt... So I thought long and hard about what it is that God is asking me to fast from this Lenten season and I think I have it figured out. He wants me to fast from feeling like I have to be the hero. That's not just below the belt, that is a chop block around the knees. I think it started being the oldest of three kids. Then I went into youth ministry when I was 18 in a system where the church sets you up to be the pied piper, superman and hero...then somewhere along the way I ended up the single parent of three young girls feeling like I was out there on a limb all by myself with no backup... walking the tightrope with no net...listening to everyone tell me that they had my back but really believing that if I didn't come through, it was toast-time for my girls. It is an unhealthy way to live, an unhealthy way to parent, and an even unhealthier way to be a minister. And people patted you on the back and sang your praises for doing stuff not many other dads did, or for being a wonderful example to the youth that were around you, and for being selfless and humble. In some ways I think I did what I had to do by instinct and self-preservation...there is no question that I love my girls and would lay down my life for them in an instant, or that I didn't love the kids I got the chance to work with down through the years. But Lent gives me a new chance to take a fresh look at the way I have lived life and loved God and other people, and see it through the eyes of an emerging Messiah, making tough calls in the desert for all the right reasons. Theologian Stanley Hauerwas says, "I'm a pacifist because I'm a violent son of a bitch". I now get the chance to journey over the next 40 days and let God deconstruct for me my need to be a mini-messiah when it is readily apparent that the Real Deal doesn't need any help with the job. Anybody wanna call shotgun?

Pling...Pling...

dg