Lent Day 1: Ash Wednesday

You desire truth in the inward being;
therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
~Psalm 51:6

David's Psalm 51--which our Bibles tell us was written after the Bathsheba/ Uriah fiasco, and God had caught David out--is the psalm appointed for Ash Wednesday. It is passionate, self-recriminating (appropriately), and also filled with gorgeous nuggets of wisdom. 

This verse is a little tricky for the translators, but contains a deep truth about being human. I think "hidden places" might be a good way to think about "secret heart"... as in teach me wisdom in my secret places. The places I hide, even from myself. 

I think David is in shock because he now knows he is a person who could do that--take a woman, without her consent, rape her, and then kill her husband to cover up her pregnancy (by marrying her real quick). A sin against Bathsheba, against Uriah, and against his people, because he is the king, and he bas broken faith with them in a devastating way. And, because each person is made in the image of God, a sin against God.

David knows, now, the only way out is through--he has to change from the inside out. Trying to hide didn't do it. Sacrifices won't do it. A thorough change of heart, his essence, is the only way.

We often come to Lent as though it were a massive self-improvement project, and I am sure I am at least partially culpable for that as a preacher. But this year I am embracing a simple plan (with the help of the exquisitely wise and funny Kate Bowler*). Lent is a time to acknowledge that we are human. That's certainly what the ashes are all about: our mortality, our finitude. But humanity is larger than simply the boundaries God has placed on our lives. Our humanity endows us with the ultimate dignity: we are made in God's image. We are God's beloved children. 

So let's start there. We are human. We are beloved. These forty days are not about the pounds lost or the mileage covered in our Bibles, but about what it means to be human. By all means--embrace a Lenten discipline if that is helpful to you. But never forget the first, essential sign of the ashes: We are dust. But what beautiful things God can do with that dust. 

*Go find Kate Bowler's Lenten Devotional ("Daily Guide") here. You won't regret it!

Lent Day 19: Cleaning

 

Guess who's using these bad boys again?

I've been cleaning. It's a pretty normal thing to do after a viral illness, I guess, but it's also something a lot of us learned to ratchet up at the beginning of the pandemic. 

Remember all the disinfectant wipes, and how they disappeared from stores and reappeared online at ten times the price?

Remember disinfecting your grocery bags before bringing them in the house, and then disinfecting the wrappings the food was in, too?

That was all so weird.

I'll be clear. I hate, loathe, despise, and abominate cleaning... except when I really, really want to do it. (Don't worry, my house is fine.)

This morning I was captivated by an urge to really clean following my weekend bug (not Covid, some have been asking). So I donned rubber gloves and got out the cleaners that you're not supposed to inhale for too long or they'll, I don't know, scorch your lungs? And I set to work.

It took about an hour, after which I felt like I'd done, not only a necessary thing, but a good thing.  Cleaning made my house feel like home again after the dislocating, disorienting experience of feeling distanced from it, even though I've been here, without interruption, since Saturday.

Some language around Lent evokes the notions of cleaning. "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean," the psalm reads. "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and steadfast spirit within me." I will admit that some of the language of this psalm troubles me, though not because I don't believe in sin. (I do.) It bothers me because "clean" and "unclean" have been used throughout history to isolate and punish groups of people, usually on the basis of ethnicity, social class, or sexual orientation. "Dirty ______" has been an epithet hurled too often, and too many, resulting in real damage, including death.

At the same time, Lent is a time for... can we say, decluttering? Prioritizing? Setting the house of the soul in order--not because some part of it is polluted, but because clarity can be good. It helps us to see and appreciate what is there. It helps us to let go of what we no longer need. It helps us to restore order after a time of distress. 

I admit it. Cleaning can be good.