Lent Day 8: Off On the Wrong Foot: A Reboot

I'm looking back on these early days of Lent, and feeling I've gotten off on the wrong foot with this Lenten reading-writing discipline.  I've slipped easily into something that tends to be my default mode with scripture: I'm analyzing, I'm explaining, I'm getting technical, I'm contextualizing. And... it seems to me, that's not what my intention was with this writing. My intention was to use it to spiritual purpose. Don't get me wrong: I think that analysis of scripture can have a spiritual component, but I'm not feeling it here.

So, today, what I'm doing is asking for a reboot. As if it were day 1. From now on, instead of trying to do something like an exegesis paper, I'm going to look for a word or a phrase in which I find God, and I'm going to try to talk about that.

This morning I read three passages, including Psalm 27; the psalm was, by far, the passage that stayed with me most powerfully. (You can find it here.)

Psalms are songs, and I've sung at least four different song-settings of this psalm over the course of my life of faith. The one that has found a home in my heart is the one by David Haas, "The Lord is my Light." You can listen to it here.

The Lord is my light and my salvation;
    whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life;
    of whom shall I be afraid? ~Psalm 27:1

Even now, as I sit here, gazing at these words and listening to the beautiful music, I'm drawn to this idea: "Of whom should I be afraid?" There are so many things to be afraid of in this world. By virtue of my race, class, wealth, education, I am protected from so many of them. That is not true for the vast majority of people in this country or in this world. Last week I watched a viral video of an Arkansas State Senator pushing back against proposed "Stand Your Ground" legislation  Sen. Stephanie Flowers spoke, angrily, with anguish, about her fear for her son's life. She is African American.

I don't face the same fears Sen. Flowers does, but I share her anguish for her son, and for all men of color. My fears are the fears of someone who, essentially, lives in security. I fear loss of love. I fear loneliness. These fears can be explained by psychological factors, by life experience, and, when I'm most centered, most present to myself and God, I can recognize them as just so much wheel-spinning, and let them go. At one time, I feared the loss of my livelihood and calling as a pastor, because I was planning to come out to my congregation. But even that fear was fleeting... my experience turned out to be one of love and grace.

Lent, this time in which Christians pay special attention to their walk with Jesus, this time when we seek a deeper spiritual connection with one another and with God, seems like a good time to confront our fears, and perhaps put them in conversation with this psalm/ song. We all have some fears, some times, whether there are psychological explanations or perfectly reasonable factors leading to those fears. I don't believe in a religious version of "Don't worry, be happy." I do believe that God's presence with us can help to put our fears to rest. I also believe that presence becomes more and more tangible, the more we open our hearts to God in prayer.

That's where the psalms come in. Thousands of years old, prayed by, easily, millions and millions of people over the millennia, they are God-soaked and bring us, I believe, into the presence of what scripture calls "that great cloud of witnesses." The more we allow these prayer-songs of ancient peoples to be part of the landscape of our hearts, the more our fears recede, or, at least, become "right-sized." The more steadily we pray the psalms, the more we can say (or sing), with the psalmist, "Of whom/ what should I be afraid?"