Yesterday I wrote about the boy who woke up, the story of The Prodigal Son. The way I see him, he was the young man who had to turn his back on his family and childhood structure in order to mature enough to finally “come to himself.” It was not until he sank so low […]
Lent: the boy who woke up
Today across the country, many ministers are preaching about the parable we call the Prodigal Son. This is perhaps the best known and best loved of Jesus’ parables. This story in the Gospel of Luke is the suggested text in the lectionary, the guide followed by many denominations for suggested worship themes for each Sunday […]
Lent: Needless suffering, Part 2
I’m reading Natalie Goldberg’s The Great Failure this morning. She wrote of her Zen master’s words, “My job is to make you dumb.” She went on to write that “dumb” was a compliment in Zen. “It meant you weren’t running ahead of yourself, planning, organizing, strategizing. You were open to receive the world as it […]
Lent: Needless suffering
More about legitimate suffering and needless suffering. Almost all of my misery is needless. That is, it’s mostly contrived, based on my assumptions about what should or should not be happening. By misery, I mean anger, frustration, boredom, restlessness, worry, angst, and all the other emotional states that make my days longer and probably shorten […]
Lent: Legitimate suffering
When I do what I am doing, I am in the position to appreciate the fullness of the moment and to learn what the moment has to teach me. When my attention is split, I miss it. But there is another far more damaging way that I split my attention. This goes beyond merely being […]
Lent: Do what you are doing, Part 2
I do not play chess. I’m not a quilter. I’m not a bird-watcher nor do I collect spoons from different states. Yet, I know people who do these things. And they do them passionately. I often wonder, how? Why? These activities seem uninteresting, even boring to me. Lenten disciplines remind me that any activity done […]