Welcome to Lent…. 40 days and nights to reflect on our relationship with God as we journey towards Easter.
Over the last few weeks, I have been drawn to 4 words in my prayer time each day: courage – love – truth – faithfulness. I breathe in the word ‘courage’ and breathe out the word ‘love’; then breathe in the word ‘truth’ and breathe out the word ‘faithfulness’. I repeat this four-fold breathing several times and find that the words, along with their spiritual impact, have become a part of my life. Sometimes, in the midst of my day, I find myself stopping for a moment or two to focus on my breath and the depth of these words. You might want to do that for a few moments now.
Courage – love – truth – faithfulness.
These four words speak quite clearly to me of what it means to live as God’s people in this time, and I encourage you to use them throughout Lent this year.
We often need to draw on courage from beyond ourselves as we live in such unsettled times and when we do this we find that courage is a gift that God gives to us. But we need to be careful what we do with our courage, so we do not bully and attack. This is why we need love to grow from our courage and flow out into the world.
We need a lot of love to live in the here and now. Love will stop us from falling into the hatred that is all around in our world, for Jesus is very clear that we are to meet hatred with love.
As I reflect on this I am reminded of the life of Etty Hillesum. Etty was a 27-year-old Dutch Jew living in Amsterdam when the Nazis invaded in May 1940 and from March 1941 until her death in November 1943 she kept a diary that chronicles her journey in a time of great hate. Very early on in this diary, she writes, “Nazi barbarism evokes the same kind of barbarism in ourselves… we have to reject that barbarism within us, we must not fan the hatred within us, because if we do, the world will not be able to pull itself one inch further out of the mire.” She sees that hate breeds hate and through this, she realises our human responsibility to resist hate. We must breathe in courage from God – so that we can breathe out love in the world. This is crucial if we are not to be drawn into the hatred that seems to be filling so many in our world in our time.
I think a starting point for this is found in the words in the image I have posted here: to ask ourselves “I wonder why” takes us to the humanity of the situation and moves us toward love and away from anger.
There are no easy answers to the state of our world, but we can start with ourselves: courage – love – truth – faithfulness.
Next time I write I will reflect on truth and faithfulness in our lives and in our world.
Every blessing for your Lenten journey.
Rev Anne
