lent readings, week four

To hear Brandi read this week’s essay, click here: https://youtu.be/ckwo4jFowFY

I grew up in an achievement-oriented household. Our protestant work ethic was actually our life ethic, and we were raised to work longer and hustle faster than anyone else. This led me to believe all sorts of things about how my value was rooted in my effort. Looking back, I know it is truer that we were being taught to demonstrate our value as beloved kids through our effort, but the two messages still conflate for me in, at times, devastating ways. Part of adulting is exploring the unintentional messages you’ve adopted, and to clarify what will remain for you.

As kids, we were so loved, so believed in, that we were encouraged to try and excel in any bles-sed thing we took a liking to. It was amazing. My parents were always game to teach a thing, drive a distance, or enlist for an adventure. Now, as a parent of 4, I have no idea how they found the energy to encourage us to try so much. I often encourage my kids to try to be quiet and not make any plans that require my help. Ha!

In all seriousness, my need to go, to do, to produce, has been with me since I had language to describe that drive. I live life at a sprint, which means the last year has been a relentless teacher of stillness, silence and solitude. I am so grateful to have been grounded in this way (I recommend this term with at least three connotations to consider):

The air traffic control version when flights are grounded and all hell breaks loose in the terminal as people’s plans vanish,

AND,

The grounding-as-punishment earned by wayward teenagers who refuse to abide by the rules set to help them (and others) flourish,

AND,

The contemplative practice of spiritual grounding, helping one be present in one’s body in the very moment one is in).

Grounding is good for us. It hurts, it frustrates, it destroys plans, it slows us down, it restricts us. And, it is good for us. This week of Lent, ask how grounding functions in your own life. (PS-This is a backdoor into a conversation with yourself and God about how and why you do what you do. How much of your doing, of your pre-COVID routine, is a way for you to prove to yourself that you belong? That you are valuable? What happens to your sense of worth when you are forced to stop doing, when you are grounded?)

For me, my understanding of my place and purpose tends to vanish when the “thing I do” or the “institution I challenge” or the “people I teach” are taken away. It is terrifying. I fear I am built to perform, and thus feel lost when I am grounded. By leaning in to the wisdom found in silence, the presence found in solitude and the value found in stillness, I am learning another way to be.

 When we were younger, we sometimes stumbled across the rare Saturday when no one had a game, a practice, a rehearsal, or a job. My youngest sister always anticipated this miracle first. Armed with the knowledge that no one had to leave, she would patiently wait until one of us appeared to be going somewhere. Then, dressed in pjs and a bathrobe, she would throw her little body between said person and the door, yelling, “It’s bathrobe day! You can’t leave!” Knowing what this meant, the person would usually start laughing, gently resisting her order. Looking up, other siblings would began to chant, “Bathrobe Day!” Inevitably having succumbed to peer pressure, 15 minutes later we would all be in pjs, starting a movie marathon. The only movement allowed on bathrobe days was when one poor soul had to make milkshakes for the rest of us.

My sister knew things I didn’t, even as a kid. She knew that grounding was good for me. She knew that every productivity addict secretly longs for bathrobe day. Lent offers us a similar kind of wisdom. This week, approach grounding with curiosity. Allow yourself to wonder if you matter even when you can’t produce. Allow yourself to ask God how to trust you are loved even when you are alone. How to know your life has impact even when your stillness slows your roll.  How to know your voice matters even when only God can hear it.

This week, pursue grounding for all the good and ugly it might reveal in you. Try bathrobe day, and separate the you that does from the you who is. She is in you, and deserves to know she is loved before she does a thing. I pray you notice that when you are grounded, you stumble into a beautiful grounding before God and others that allows you sit in silence, in stillness, in solitude, in love.

To Ponder:

“But how sobering, that I can bring forth out of my thought-world into the external world either that which leads to life, or that which produces death in other men…we must understand that the reality of communion with God, and loving God, must take place in the inward self.”                               -Francis Shaeffer

“Contemplative prayer deepens us in the knowledge that we are already free, that we have already found a place to dwell, that we already belong to God, even though everyone and everything around us keep suggesting the opposite.”  -Henri Nouwen

To Read:

Mar 10 Ps 103; 131

Mar 11 Isaiah 43:1-7

Mar 12 Ps 1:1-3; 23

Mar 13 Habb 3:17-19

Mar 14 Luke 6:20-31

Mar 15 Ps 106:1-8

Mar 16 Eccles 3:1-8; Ps 13