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To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:
‘We played the pipe for you, and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’

(Matthew 11:16–17, NIV)

What is your favorite work of art? A painting, perhaps, or a piece of music, or a film that has stayed with you?

I struggle to choose favorites, but a few come to mind: the film Tree of Life with its epic scope and poetic unfolding, the choral music of Eric Whitacre with its tight harmonies and transcendent melodies, the architecture of Antoni Gaudí—stepping into the Sagrada Familia was like entering an entirely different world of light, color, and a paradoxical earthy transcendence.

Perhaps you have your own work of art that has taken you on a similar journey.

What all of these works of art have in common is a sense of contrast. Films unfold at a variety of paces, often with a slow-moving first act and an action-packed finale. Music has a similar pattern, such as Beethoven’s famous Fifth Symphony, beginning with a sudden strike that gives way to quiet movement. And of course, paintings require the contrasts of light, shadow, and color to give form to their shapes—otherwise they would simply appear as a great grayish blob.

There is a term for how this appears in visual art: chiaroscuro. It refers to a particular technique that emerged during the Renaissance, in which artists used shading and shadow to bring out dimension and depth to their paintings. da Vinci, Caravaggio, and Rembrandt are known masters of chiaroscuro. The term itself comes from Italian and literally means “light-dark” (chiaro = light, scuro = dark). Another Italian term that captures this same principle is pianoforte, the original name for the piano. The instrument got its name because it could be both soft (piano) and loud (forte)—a breakthrough in musical engineering that enabled far more expressive composition by composers such as Beethoven and Mozart.

These works reveal a truth: Beauty calls for contrast. Beauty is not light or dark, loud or soft, fast or slow, but the interplay of all together.

Just as paintings have contrasts and music has dynamics, so time has seasons.

This week, we enter the season of Lent—a quieter, darker, slower season in the calendar of faith. Its sights are gray ashes and empty wilderness. Its sounds are smoldering flames and winds upon rough sand. Its sense is somber as it makes its forty-day journey toward death.

Then will come the season of Easter with its sights of sunrise and new blossoms, its sounds of “Hallelujah!”, and its sense of wonder as it stretches out fifty days of resurrection celebration.

Together, these ninety days are a kind of chiaroscuro, a pianoforte, inviting us into greater fullness and beauty in our life with God. They are the dirge and pipe of Jesus’ parable.

Jesus used this image of dirge and pipe to describe those who did not respond—neither to John the Baptist’s austere wilderness ministry nor to his own celebratory village presence—because of their hard hearts. Today, we face a similar challenge. Though hard hearts remain, our hearts are also deluged with overstimulation. In our saturated environment, loud and soft mix into a constant hum of noise, and light and dark blur into an endless scroll of input, while our hurried lives and harried attentions grow numb to beauty itself.

So perhaps this season is an invitation to reacquaint ourselves with the light and shadow, the melody and harmony, the tragedy and comedy of our spiritual lives. Just as artworks and seasons call for contrast, so too does a beautiful life.

What are the dim and quiet parts of your life that need attending to? What do you need to grieve? Where do you need healing? Lent offers a time to pause, reflect, and pray.

What bright and melodious parts of your life long to be awakened? What goodness is there, waiting to bloom? What resurrection in you might already be stirring, ready to be named and celebrated? Easter will offer an opportunity to name the life that God is bringing and welcome it more fully.

As you journey through these coming seasons of darkness and light, tragedy and comedy, consider engaging works of art that can accompany you along the way. Let me offer a few resources to get you started:

• Book: The Wood Between the Worlds: A Poetic Theology of the Cross by Brian Zahnd – A collection of essays taking a “theopoetic” approach to the cross through art, film, and literature.
• Poetry: Word in the Wilderness – An anthology of Lenten poems with commentary by Malcolm Guite, a renowned modern poet whose own work and blog are well worth exploring.
• Film: Soul on Screen Podcast – Conversations exploring truth, beauty, and goodness in film (full disclosure: I’m part of these conversations and would love for you to join us).
• Art: The Art of Lent and The Art of Holy Week and Easter by Sister Wendy Beckett offer daily paintings with meditations. Also recommended: the Visual Commentary on Scripture.
• Music: For Lent – After Silence by Voces8. For Easter – Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland. For ongoing music recommendations – The Rabbit Room and Holy Ghost Record Club.

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Today marks the first official day of autumn. Days are dimming, leaves are turning, and life is likely settling into new rhythms. In several conversations lately, I’ve heard the sentiment that fall often feels more like “New Year’s” than the actual new year. Is that true for you?

Even though I’ve been out of the school system for years, the academic calendar still feels more real to me than the standard one. Entering this new season carries its own sense of a fresh start with fresh invitations.

I often find that seasonal shifts are good moments to pause. To check in. To wonder how I’m doing and what the coming season might hold. So let me ask: How are you? What does this season hold for you? Are there new beginnings or transitions calling for your attention? Are there fresh rhythms or invitations emerging?

An Odd Invitation

I’m reminded of a transformative moment from a few years ago when I received an odd invitation. I was several months into my first year as a pastor, and the calendar had just turned over to January, so I was naturally in a time of reflection.

I found myself wondering what I needed for the months ahead. The internal dialogue went something like this: Maybe some books to help me learn and grow in my new position? There are professional development funds I could use. Or perhaps a new devotional routine? The new year is perfect for resetting rhythms… What do I need in this coming season?

Nothing specific came to mind. Of course, I’m sure plenty of things could have come to mind. I never have a shortage of recommended books and practices. But in that particular moment, nothing really surfaced. Then it dawned on me:

Nothing came to mind.

And the unexpected invitation found its way to me through this quiet realization: What I need most right now is nothing… I need more nothing in my life.

That was it. An odd invitation to nothing.

Instead of listing off books to read, goals to meet, and practices to adopt, I found myself simply making space. I began practicing intentional silence and stillness and scheduling appointments for nothing.

It became a season of quiet settling. Nothing revolutionary. Just a time of centering. Like roots digging deeper underground, finding nourishment in their hiddenness.

The Paradox of Fullness

We live in a busy world that’s always getting busier. We embrace the busyness because it seems to offer a sense of fullness. But this is a false fullness. Theologian Andrew Root observes that “busyness is not the kind of fullness that can connect us to something bigger than us.” Real connection shouldn’t require racing to keep up. Instead, true connection—true fullness—is discovered when we slow down enough to become present to the things we don’t have to keep up with. The things that are simply here.

In this mysterious, paradoxical way, fullness is found not by filling our lives with more and more, but by emptying them out. Fullness is counterintuitively found in nothing.

We might just discover that nothing isn’t empty but full. Instead of an absence, it makes way for presence: presence for our true selves and awareness of the presence of God. In that Presence we discover a hidden love that simply holds us without demanding pace, performance, or productivity to prove ourselves. In the nothing that tunes us to God, we can finally rest.

A Recent Experience

Just a few weeks ago, I found myself in an exhausted frenzy. Sleepless nights and restless days had piled up. Anxiety had taken hold of me as I prepared for a flurry of new initiatives for the coming season.

I finally collapsed in desperation, and then the words of a psalm began to sound within me like that odd invitation from years ago: It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil, for he gives sleep to his beloved. (Psalm 127:2 NRSVue)

These words rushed over me like a balm. They speak directly to our false fullness. We busy ourselves to prove our value but the psalmist cuts through the noise to say that it’s all in vain. Instead of earning through anxious toil, we are meant to freely receive beloved rest.

An Invitation For You

So I want to extend that odd, unexpected, mysterious, paradoxical invitation to you at the start of this new season. What if you made space for a little more nothing in your life?

As the days dim and the quiet of night grows longer, what if we embraced the stillness inherent in this season instead of fighting against it? What if we trusted that nothing is actually full? What if we believed that God is not calling us to anxious toil but giving us beloved rest?

Perhaps the leaves are teaching us something in their letting go. Maybe the longer nights are offering us gifts of quiet and sleep that we desperately need. Autumn’s arrival might just be another sounding of that odd invitation:

What you need most right now is nothing.

Simple Practices for Sacred Nothing

Scheduled Stillness: Schedule 15-20 minutes of intentional stillness in your calendar. Sit quietly without agenda, phone, or task. Simply be present. Let this become a regular appointment with nothing.

Mindful Transitions: Whether in the car, on the bus, or walking between places, resist the urge to turn on podcasts or music. Instead, move through these moments aware of and present to the world around you.

Evening Emptiness: As nights grow longer, resist filling every hour with activity or screens. Make space for quiet reflection, deep breathing, sitting with the day’s experiences, or unhurried conversations. You might be surprised by what emerges from this nothing.

Questions for Reflection

• Where in your life do you most need the gift of nothing?
• What would change if you trusted that fullness is not found in busyness?
• How might God be offering you rest in this season?
• What do you need to release to make space for sacred stillness?

As you consider what “nothing” might look like in your life, spiritual direction can offer a space to explore these invitations more deeply. I’d be honored to join you in discovering what God might be inviting you into in this season. Learn more here.

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It has been nearly two weeks since we began new calendars for the year. By now, Christmas and New Year’s celebrations seem far off in the rear-view mirror. In fact, many of us have probably already taken up and forgotten a few resolutions as time zooms on. Theologian Andrew Root has written about this experience: “What it means to be living in a modern age (in modernity) is to have our lives continually and constantly accelerated.” An accelerated experience of time is a core characteristic of the age we live in.

This is why events from a mere two or three weeks past can seem like an eternity ago—and not in a good and beautiful way, but in an exhausting and wearying way. Root observes that in the modern age “fullness” has been replaced by “busyness.” And so our experience of time has become shallow and hurried rather than sacred and holy.

Many have recently spoken of “Ringing in the New Year,” but there was once an age when time was literally kept by ringing bells in town centers atop church steeples. The people of God were the community timekeepers; people traditionally responded to the bells by “praying the hours.” But in the late 19th century, church bells were steadily replaced by train whistles; prayers were replaced by the hurried loading and unloading of passengers and cargo. These train stations led to standardized time-zones, making transit and transaction the new lord of time. Today, train whistles have given way to the buzz of smartphones, our latest means of transit and transaction which continue ruling our days and accelerating our hours.

“Acceleration has the effect of stripping the sacred out of time,” Root concludes. This brief history of time-keeping shows how this has, quite literally, occurred as time-keeping moved from places of worship to places of commerce. Now time-keeping devices prompt us to pay or post—not pray.

Though Christmas and New Year’s seem far away, I invite you to look into that rear-view mirror and observe the notice at the bottom: “OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR.” Acceleration is a mirage of our modern age. There is another way to experience time. Consider how Christmas is described in Galatians 4:

“When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.” (Galatians 4:4-5 NRSV)

The fullness of time… This evocative phrase speaks to something in the heart of God who came to redeem us and also says something about us, who are called beloved children of God. This phrase invites us out of time ruled by transit and transaction and into time marked by redemption and belovedness; out of artificial acceleration and into sacred fullness.

The Greek language offers us two different words for these two different approaches to time. One is chronos—where we get our word chronological—which refers to sequential time, depicted as a flat timeline with past, present, and future. But another word for time is kairos, which typically refers to an experience of time with depth—not so much quantity but quality. Kairos is a way of referring to the fullness of time.

The spiritual writer Abraham Joshua Heschel writes, “Everyone will admit that the Grand Canyon is more awe-inspiring than a trench. Everyone knows the difference between a worm and an eagle. But how many of us have a similar sense of discretion for the diversity of time?” Most of us live by flatline chronos-time. But God invites us into the depth of kairos-time—sacred time—the fullness of time.

How might we re-infuse the sacred into our experience of time? Let me offer three practices:

Sabbath
Heschel has written an invaluable little book on the practice of Sabbath, describing it as “a cathedral in time.” As he reflects on the story of God in scripture, he observes how most gods dwell in space (usually a temple at a particular location), but the God of scripture has chosen to dwell in time by setting apart a particular day called Sabbath. This temple is accessible to anyone who will set aside time to pause and become present to the Presence of God. Whether a full day or a few hours, when might you set apart some time to cease your doing and simply be? Consider this Sabbath blessing to draw you into the practice.

Praying the Hours
In Psalm 55:17 the psalmist prays, “Evening, morning and noon I cry out…” Early Christians followed this rhythm by praying three times a day. Just as monks and nuns respond to the ringing of bells throughout the day with prayer, we too can sanctify time by pausing to pray the hours. At morning, midday, and evening allow your day to begin, end, and be interrupted by prayer. It can be as simple as praying a psalm or the Lord’s Prayer or expressing gratitude. I commend Lectio365, an app with guided morning, midday, and evening prayer everyday.

Feasting in Community
A final practice that never ceases to draw me into the fullness of time is feasting in community. This requires planning and preparation, but gathering around the table together always seems to make time stand still. It is no coincidence that Jesus called his followers to remember him with a meal (Luke 22:19-20) or that the story of scripture culminates in a feast (Revelation 19:9). As we eat and share, our bodies and souls are drawn into the depth of the fullness of time. As you gather, consider this Liturgy for Feasting with Friends.

As you continue through this year, may you be drawn into the fullness of time. May you know not only the shallow hurry of chronos time but also the depth and fullness of kairos time. May God meet you in each moment and draw you into redemption and love—the fullness of time.

Recommended Resources

• App: Lectio 365
• Book: The Congregation in a Secular Age: Keeping Sacred Time against the Speed of Modern Life by Andrew Root
• Book: The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel
• Book: How to Inhabit Time by James K. A. Smith
• Sermon Series: The Fullness of Time by Drew Dixon

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‘Tis the season for decorations, blowout sales, and red cups (as pumpkin spice lattes give way to peppermint mochas). Amid all this, stores and commercials press play on the many well-known earworms of carols and jingles. One of those songs contains the refrain: Do you hear what I hear? My answer: “No. Not unless you’re referring to the chaotic clamor of Christmas cacophony.”

Our cultural season of Christmas is noisy, to say the least. But alongside it, throughout the month of December, is the sacred season of Advent, which carries with it an altogether different invitation—to wait, watch, and listen.

Back to that song. It begins with evocative questions from unlikely sources:

Said the night wind to the little lamb, ‘Do you see what I see?’
Said the little lamb to the shepherd boy, ‘Do you hear what I hear?’

Quite distinct from the jangle of jingling bells—what is it like to listen to the subtle voices of the night wind and the little lamb? This is the invitation of Advent.

***

I’ve always been amazed at Jesus’ response to the question, “What is most important?”

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.’” (Mark 12:28-29 NIV)

What is most important? Jesus’ answer begins with the word “Hear.” Another translation renders it, “Listen.” The most important thing begins with hearing—with listening.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus told stories of seeds sown, sheep found, birds fed, and flowers clothed. He was one familiar with the quiet voices of winds and lambs. After telling many of these stories, he often concludes with the statement, “Whoever has ears, let them hear.” It is as if Jesus himself is asking the question, Do you hear what I hear?

***

How might we tune our ears to the deeper, more subtle frequencies of the divine? Here are two suggestions to engage:

Silence
Silence may seem like a great enemy in our age of notifications and nonstop streaming, but I love the line from Shirley Murray’s hymn, Come and Find the Quiet Center, which professes,  “Silence is a friend who claims us…” Silence may be an enemy to our noise-addicted world, but it is a dear friend to those who desire “ears to hear.”

Silence is the canvas on which we practice the art of listening. Like a palette cleanser is to the tongue, so silence is to the ears. Where might you find moments for silence within your days? Perhaps you have space to be quiet and still for a moment in the mornings. If not, perhaps you can find ways to resist some of the noise that so easily enters. Simply not turning the TV on this evening or choosing not to switch on the radio or music playlist while you drive is one way to practice silence.

The practice of silence is distinct from “me time.” It is not self-care as much as soul-care, nourishing and nurturing the soul beyond itself. Henri Nouwen writes about the desert father, Saint Anthony, who encountered silence and solitude throughout many wilderness years: “The solitude that at first had required physical isolation had now become a quality of his heart, an inner disposition that could no longer be disturbed by those who needed his guidance. Somehow his solitude had become an infinite space into which anyone could be invited.” (The Way of the Heart)

Through ongoing practice, silence shifts from an absence of noise to the presence of attention—something which can be offered and extended wherever we go with ears ready to hear.

Story
In fourth grade, my class would gather around the rocking chair in the corner of the classroom every afternoon for about half an hour—sometimes even longer—to listen to our teacher read. We heard classics from Beverly Cleary with Ramona Quimby and Henry Huggins. We heard the first Harry Potter book, which had recently become all the rage. Throughout the year, we encountered many different experiences and places—all we had to do was listen.

Stories have a way of teaching us to listen and live differently. We live by stories that go far deeper than cognition—they live in our bodies. These stories are scripts that we act out time and again, often without even knowing it. Stories of fear, shame, power, and greed proliferate our day-to-day experiences. These stories build up over time, and the internal noise they create can hinder our hearing. To be restored, we need to be re-storied.

Encountering new stories, others’ stories, and the Sacred Story are ways of listening afresh. Novels and short stories can invite us into whole new worlds; curious conversations can invite us into deeper presence with others; and regularly immersing ourselves in the story of Jesus invites us into the truest, deepest reality. What stories do you listen to and live by? How do these stories shape you? Are there new stories you might enter into and engage in this season? I commend the classic The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis for this winter season. Or returning once more to the epic song-infused narrative of Luke 1-2. Or perhaps simply sitting with a beloved friend or family member to listen afresh to their story without assumptions or judgments. Read and reflect on any of these in community, then turn to ask one another, “Do you hear what I hear?”

***

Perhaps the season we’ve entered has an invitation beyond the noise. Perhaps night winds and little lambs are whispering among us if we have ears to hear.

The later refrains of Do You Hear What I Hear? depict a divine gift exchange:

Let us bring him silver and gold
He will bring us goodness and light

Silence and story are ways we can offer our own silver and gold. And they can become places where we receive God’s goodness and light.

As we enter Advent, let us wait, let us watch, let us listen. Do you hear what I hear?

***

For Reflection:

Listen

Ten years ago, I found myself alone and abandoned in a strange city far away from friends and family.

I had moved 2,000 miles across the country to begin graduate school. But two months later, I was going through a divorce that left me alone in a place entirely unfamiliar to me. It was a disorienting season on every level — personally, socially, spiritually.

Though I had just moved, I found myself asking whether I ought to move back to where I had come from. Were there friends or family that I could be near again? Was there a new direction I should consider?

By gracious providence, I took a Celtic spirituality class in my second semester of graduate school. I learned the history of a kind of Christianity that was infused with poetry, grounded in landscape, and embedded in earthy reality. It was a breath of fresh air in a season when the wind had been knocked out of me.

One treasure from Celtic spirituality that I received was peregrinatio. The desert mothers and fathers of Egypt were known for stationary lives. They retreated into the wilderness where they would remain in small cells. Abba Moses famously instructed, “Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.” Many Celtic monks, however, lived on the move. They journeyed from place to place, even setting out on small boats without oars, simply trusting the waters to lead them in the way they should go.

Celtic peregrinatio is often translated as pilgrimage, but it is less about setting off for a particular destination and more about fully inhabiting each step of the journey. If the cell was a teacher for the desert monks, then the step was a teacher of the Celts.

In another timely providence, some friends living in Ireland invited me to visit. I could hardly contain the “Yes!” with which I responded to that invitation. After a semester learning about the depths of Celtic spirituality, I would be able to go live it—to breathe the air and touch the soil that this tradition had grown from. As this visit drew near, I approached it as a kind of pilgrimage. Amid my season of turmoil and questioning, perhaps a pilgrimage would lead me in the way I should go.

It was a beautiful trip. I beheld the artistry of the illuminated gospels in the Book of Kells, walked the grounds of the ancient monastic city of Glendalough, and explored the expansive coasts and castles along the Slea Head Drive—each step of the way I carried with me the question of my unknown future and the hope of clarity and direction. Along with the places of this pilgrimage, I also had the company of these hospitable friends and the wisdom of John O’Donohue’s poetry. Each of these elements contributed to my journey and helped uncover new layers of my soul along the way.

When the trip neared its end, I had not received any kind of divine directive about my future or apparent answers. But I had received a new and deeper sense of peace—a kind of sacred resolve that I was able to carry with me from that place. This, truly, is the gift of pilgrimage—not a destination to arrive at but a posture to walk with.

—

Is there a pilgrimage awaiting you in this season? Or a disorientation that pilgrimage might guide you through? If so, here are some elements of pilgrimage that you might consider taking up, whether on a journey abroad or a local walk.

Question
What sets pilgrimage apart from vacation is the posture of discernment. The goal of pilgrimage is not mere entertainment or amusement but discovery. Is there a question you might carry with you as you embark on your pilgrimage? Whether a major decision (“Do I move to a different city or remain here?”) or a subtle invitation (“How can I live more freely and lightly?”), find a question to bring along as you journey.

Path
Though it may be obvious, a pilgrim must journey along a path. While this path can be something other than a sacred site across the world, it is good for it to be a path less familiar to you. Familiarity has a way of developing blind spots in our awareness. Traveling an unfamiliar path can open our eyes not only to new places on earth but also within ourselves. What path might you travel along? Is there a place that calls to you?

Friend
Much can be uncovered on a solitary journey—solo pilgrims have much to receive. But it may be wise to bring a friend along the way. The Celtic saints were known for having Anam Cara—soul friends with whom they journeyed through life. Again, posture sets pilgrimage apart from vacation, so it is vital for friends on pilgrimage to journey with shared intent—each accompanying one another toward depths of discovery. Who might you bring with you on your journey?

Guide
As we journey, we are invited to open our hearts to receive wisdom and guidance along the way. Celtic monks often traveled with small books containing the gospels and psalms. The Celtic tradition has also given us a variety of poems and pilgrim prayers for the journey, whether Columba’s “The path I walk, Christ walks it” or Patrick’s “Christ before me, Christ behind me.” Is there a passage of scripture or a collection of poems or prayers that you might consider bringing as a guide? (I especially recommend collections from John O’Donohue and Mary Oliver.)

“When you travel, you find yourself
Alone in a different way,
More attentive now
To the self you bring along,
Your more subtle eye watching
You abroad; and how what meets you
Touches that part of the heart
That lies low at home…

When you travel,
A new silence
Goes with you,
And if you listen,
You will hear
What your heart would
Love to say.”

from A Blessing for the Traveler by John O’Donohue

When it happened six years ago, I just so happened to be in a preaching class during my last year of seminary. I jumped at the opportunity to try writing a sermon that somehow spoke to this double-booked holy day. Below is the sermon I shared with my classmates on February 14, 2018 — Ash Valentine’s Day.

As I thought about today, I recalled a scene from growing up when my mom and dad would sit down at the kitchen table to “touch base,” as my dad used to say. My mom would pull the calendar off the wall, hanging next to the phone with its long, tangled cord. My dad would thump down a massive, padded binder filled with calendar sheets that had been printed off from Microsoft Outlook. Together, they would arrange and align their calendars.

Today is quite an interesting alignment of calendars. It is Valentine’s Day—the day our culture celebrates love and romance. But it is also Ash Wednesday—the day the church enters into a season of lament by remembering our own mortality, and the suffering of the world.

The alignment of these two days feels strange at first—the bright pinks and reds of Valentine’s Day don’t compliment the grey of our Lenten ashes very well. But on closer look, these two days together draw us to consider their two themes together: love and death. The passage I’ve chosen to read is from the end of the Song of Songs:

Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm;
for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame.
Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.
If one offered for love all the wealth of his house, it would be utterly scorned.
(Song of Solomon 8:6-7, NRSV)

The Song of Songs is a series of deeply felt, intimate, poetic exchanges between lovers. They often express their deep longing for one another.

In this passage the woman calls to her lover, expressing desire for connection and permanence. Her unmet desire for intimacy and companionship are communicated with vivid imagery: death, the grave, fire, flood. This longing is strong and painful!

In addition to painful desire, there is also a fear of shame expressed in the passage. There is a fear that offering oneself to love might be met with “utter scorn.”

Here we witness an intersection of love and death.

I would venture to say that we are all familiar with this intersection in some way or another.

Most of us have experienced or witnessed love go all wrong. The reason my parents sat at the table to “touch base” is because they were divorced. That’s the home I grew up in. After swearing that would never happen to me, I ended up living through the pain of my own divorce during my first year here in Seattle. Love is not as it should be, and so we are broken, shamed, and often longing for something we do not have.

Love is not only broken, but also badly perverted. While the passage read, “Love is strong as death,” our world often expresses it, “Lust is violent as death.” Indeed, Love and Death have become Lust and Violence for us. Stories of lust and violence echo through our history from early chapters in Genesis to Greek mythology to recent days in headline after headline. And only now is there beginning to be movement toward justice on this front in which powerful white men are losing their positions because of their lust and violence.

There is a long way yet to come for unjust power dynamics to topple, and the cycles of abuse to be broken on both individual and systemic levels. Meanwhile, we wait, longing with the speaker in this passage for a kind of love and belonging that is safe and certain.

Some may not have had their loved tinged by the taste of death. They have had the gift of belonging. Or perhaps are simply positioned in a place of privilege. For these, the call of our Lenten season is one moving toward awareness, solidarity, and acknowledging the ways in which we have contributed to the problem.

I want to turn attention back to the passage and reconsider a couple of things.

First, there is this curious language of a “seal.” Throughout the Song of Songs the woman speaks freely, boldly, and truly – which is how things ought to be. Here she not only speaks boldly but acts boldly. Her words of longing do not play into the patriarchal love story of “damsel in distress” or “princess looking for prince charming” that our culture has often churned out. She is not asking to have his seal on her, but rather to be the seal on him! Here we see an autonomous woman with agency. But we also see that autonomy does not mean isolation and agency does not mean apathy. We see a love that is strong and autonomous and yet wildly connected and intimate.

I would also like to reconsider the images we see there: grave, fire, and floods. Though these images evoke scenes of natural disaster, trauma, and despair, they might also remind us of the movement of the Spirit who flickers in flames of fire, hovers over the face of the waters, descends upon the waters of baptism, and rose Christ from the grave. These images of despair are also images of hope. Such it is with God. Where there is despair, there is the Spirit. When we have heard the groans of our hearts, we have heard the rumblings of the Spirit of God.

On second glance at this passage, we can actually see a brilliant subversion at play. “Love is strong as death… Love is strong as death.” Though death may be imminent and inescapable, love is all the more. Though death may bind with its cold grip, love warms us all the more. The reality of our own despair and trauma is a subversive reminder of Christ’s presence with us. And this is the season we enter into today.

But it isn’t where we end up. While marriage vows declare, “Until death do us part,” baptismal vows declare that “If we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (Romans 6:5 NRSV) While marriage vows anticipate the imminence of death, so our Lenten journey anticipates life. God’s love led him to join us in our suffering and death so that we might also join him in resurrection and life.

Though today we enter into a season of death, it is not where our story will end. But it is where we are right now. And Christ is here with us with “love as strong as death.”

Over the past couple of years, the Desert Mothers and Fathers have been an inspiration for me personally as well as a prime example as I consider the church in 21st century America. Their lives and teaching have encouraged my faith and offered direction as I serve and lead a community of faith. I believe the Desert Mothers and Fathers offer a different way of thinking, being, and functioning as people with God. I shared what I’ve learned from these rich figures in my session entitled Embracing the Wilderness Way.

You can listen to the session below. I hope their stories and examples can be as encouraging, challenging, and reorienting for you as they have been for me.

Embracing the Wilderness Way

Receiving, training in, and practicing spiritual direction has been an incredibly formative experience for me, so I chose to share on this topic: what is spiritual direction, where did it come from, and who is it for? Throughout the session I traced some biblical examples, its history through the church, and its place in the present day. The recording of this session has been made available and I am happy to share it below. I hope it can be helpful for you.

What is Spiritual Direction?

If you would like to learn more about my work in spiritual direction, head over to my spiritual direction page here. I would be honored to share more or journey with you in this way.

“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.” —Elie Wiesel

I deeply believe this to be true. Wiesel wrote this after experiencing the torment of the Holocaust, when many passively watched while whole communities were carted away.

I am reminded of a similar sentiment in Dr. Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, “[The] great stumbling block in [our] stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice.” Indifference in the face of injustice is worse than the injustice itself.

This is why Jesus told stories like The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37), where some indifferently passed by a person in need while another compassionately stopped to help, or the story of a rich man who indifferently ignored a poor man at his gate (Luke 16:19-31). Indifference adds insult to injury by accepting the status quo and choosing what is comfortable over what is right. Indifference truly is the enemy of love. I believe this to be true.

And yet…

I have recently been reading Ignatius of Loyola, a 16th-century pioneer in the work of spiritual formation, whose foundational first principle includes, “It is necessary to make ourselves indifferent to all created things…so that, on our part, we want not health rather than sickness, riches rather than poverty, honor rather than dishonor, long rather than short life, and so in all the rest.” As I came across these words they resonated as deeply as Wiesel’s. After all, so many wrongs in the world are the result of prejudice and prideful preference. The cacophony of internet arguments and contemporary outrage would all cease if we could learn the wisdom of Ignatius by letting go of our preconceptions and preferences and learning to simply see and listen.

Somehow, both Elie Wiesel and Ignatius of Loyola were speaking something true, yet I can’t help but feel the obvious friction. How can indifference be opposed to love and a foundational commitment?

This season of Lent is leading us toward a scene that demonstrates this tension. In the final days of Lent, we will find ourselves in a hilltop garden where we witness two kinds of indifference.

Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. On reaching the place, he said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.

When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow. “Why are you sleeping?” he asked them. “Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.” (Luke 22:39-46)

This scene occurs on the eve of the crucifixion and will undoubtedly be witnessed through upcoming Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services. In it we see two distinct types of indifference.

On the one hand, there is the kind of indifference that Elie Wiesel warns about as the disciples fall asleep to the world around them. Though Jesus is in anguish and asks for their prayers to join his, they give way to sleepy indifference as they literally fall asleep at his side.

On the other hand, there is the kind of indifference that Ignatius of Loyola heartily commends as Jesus open-handedly prays, “Not my will, but yours.” With this prayer, Jesus remains wide awake to his desire and the pain of the world around him, yet he yields his will to God. It is a holy indifference.

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This scene invites us to consider what role indifference plays in our lives. Where do we find ourselves in the story?

Are there concerns that we need to let go of, detach from, and become indifferent toward? Where in life might we pray, “Not my will, but yours…”?

Are there realities that we need to wake up to, attend to, and stop being indifferent toward? What people and places might we move toward, freshly awake and aware of their needs and desires?

As we continue this season of Lent and move toward that scene of deep prayer, may we be both awake to reality and also open to possibility. May we live with holy indifference.