transformation is uncomfortable: thoughts on lent

To hear Dr. Kellett read this essay, click here: https://youtu.be/kN0vPK-npYc

My kids go to a school that shares a founding sentiment that a complete education must address the whole child in order to teach kids to thrive in a diverse world. They share my belief that our segregated city separates us, preventing our chance to learn from each other. Sharing spaces with different others might not happen often in Nashville, but finding comfort in diverse groups will happen if we regularly seek out those kinds of spaces. Learning to hold on to you when you feel alone in a place is hard work. It can be uncomfortable in lots of ways. But it is worth it.

Because their school knows how hard it can be, they believe that creating a place where lots of different kids interact is not enough. Kids have to be taught how to reach across lines of difference. They have to be taught how to notice their bodies when they feel threatened or defensive or isolated. They have to be taught how to notice and appreciate the differences in their habits and someone else’s normal. When we notice our response to difference, we begin expanding our comfort with discomfort. When we become comfortable with unease, we increase our ability to grow, to build durable relationships, and to collaborate with others to make meaning out of our experiences.

I think of Lent the way I think of entering a new place where I feel uneasy and alone. During Lent, what feels normal or even good begins to change, and I learn to imagine a different way of being in the world. I want to slow down in a world that forces me to move quickly. I want to be in a life that values those who do. I want to ponder in a world that celebrates production. I want to confess among people who cover up their faults. I feel uncomfortable as I notice the tension in my body, torn between different ways of ordering my steps.

Noticing my discomfort, sitting with my longings, and observing my awareness helps me realize I’ve created habits of living that crush me. It is not enough to notice the differences; I want and need to find new patterns of grace, new rhythms of listening to my Maker in my body.

When we learn to find comfort in the discomfort of diverse people, our eyes open to the wonder of transformative relationships. When we learn to notice our longing for differently paced internal lives, our bodies open up to the presence of God in spirit, teaching us new ways to be in the world. Give in to this work, appreciating the process of being transformed by God.

A week into Lent, a lot of us feel our hope diminishing. Our discipline might have failed us. Our focus has faltered. Fasting and sacrifice are hard. Limiting our desires and serving others is hard. Daily choosing stillness, solitude and silence are hard. Do not give up just because you feel discomfort. Increase your appetite for uncertainty, and lean in to these practices of stillness, silence and solitude even more. Change might happen slowly, and transformation requires discomfort as you release one way of being in order to embrace a different way of life. Rediscover the presence of your Maker in you, and you will find a greater capacity to embrace and care for yourself and others.

Readings for this week are below.

Week Two: Recovery and freedom are possible

“Silence and solitude are the recovery room for the soul weakened by busyness…In silence and solitude we regain our perspective, or more importantly, God’s perspective. Augustine described it as learning to ‘perform the rhythms of one’s life without getting entangled in them.’ Alone with God in prayerful quiet, the rhythms of life are untangled.”                                                     -Howard Baker 

 “When Jesus liberates the man, he also intends to liberate the community. He intends to set bodies free from suffering and violence…This represents the hopes of oppressed people all over and the hopes of the life of Jesus: freedom to be human, freedom to build life, freedom to love, freedom to work, freedom to create joy.”                                                                                         -Danté Stewart

 “Whatever may be the tensions and stresses of a particular day, there is always lurking close at hand the trailing beauty of forgotten joy or unremembered peace.”                        -Howard Thurman

3/9 Ps 120:1-2; 121:1-4

3/10 Zeph 3:14-18

3/11 Ps 107:1-9, 19-31

3/12 Daniel 6:25-28; Genesis 28:15

3/13 Matthew 7:24-8:3

3/14 Ecclesiastes 7:5-14

3/15 Ps 130