The practices
for Lent
The Paschal mystery Lent walks us into the paschal mys- tery of Christ, his movement through death to resurrected life. This isn’t something that happens just to Jesus, but is the central truth and dynamic of life in Christ. In utter love and incomprehen-
sibility, God brings new life out of the wounds that kill body and soul. Our lives move through a downward ascent in which we die and are raised to new life, again and again. We practice the paschal mystery
by: • Naming our deaths. What deaths and losses have you experienced in the last year—the loss of youth, health, relationships, security, wholeness, job, dreams, loved ones? Or perhaps the loss of the kind of faith and ideas about God you once held? • Refusing to cling. Release to God what has been lost. Give thanks for how it blessed you. What are you holding on to that you need to let go? What makes it hard to release it? • Grieving what has been lost. Allow yourself the sadness, remorse, guilt, anger and all the feelings that are part of grief. Offer them all to
Perichoretic relationships Human beings are made to cultivate and sustain relationships that reflect the divine image, the dance of love that exists at the heart of the Trinity (page 20). Ancient church fathers called this perichoresis, the infi- nite, illimitable, liquid flow of love among the persons of the Trinity, from the Father to the Son, breathing into us through the Spirit. Perichoretic relationships have a mutuality of giving and receiving. Gifts of grace are shared naturally, easily and with joy, reflecting the joyous giving of God. They can appear anywhere at any moment. One recent Sunday after worship
DESIGNPICS
God in prayer. • Claiming your births. What signs of new birth or new begin- nings appear as you experienced deaths and losses and began to let go? Claim the spirit of the new life, the new reality that is appearing. • Praying. Regularly pray for God to bring new life through the death of what is lost: “Loving God, in your
mercy carry me forward when I lack the strength and courage to go on. When I am losing hold of myself and all I treasure, help me trust that all the deaths I die will bear me deeper into your life.”
two women were deep in conversa- tion. Ten minutes before, they were nothing more to each other than names on a prayer list. Now they leaned close, sharing pain and hope: two women, with a common cancer, one three years into treatment, the other newly diagnosed. The care flowing between them looked a lot like our triune God. All authentic forms of personal relationship in which human beings love and respect each other, engag- ing in mutual self-giving, express the divine image. Through seeing and cultivating such relationships, we participate in the river of divine life coursing through our time and place. Our lives and the life of the world around us are transformed as we receive and share the one love who is God.
Often we think of giving up things for Lent. It might be more useful and nearer the heart of God to see every association and every encounter of our life as an invitation to cultivate rightly ordered relationships—peri- choretic relationships—in which understanding, mercy and the gifts of creation are
freely shared to create a world of communion and justice that reflects God’s triune dream for reality. Each day we can examine our- selves, reviewing the day for the places we have seen or engaged in such relationships. We can acknowl- edge, too, where we resisted or injured them, resolving to respond more faithfully in the future. The restoring power of com-
mon Christian community is star- tling, gathering to share our lives and pains, successes and failures, frustrations and blessings, perhaps sharing food and drink in our time together. The natural give-and-take of people who can simply listen and
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