Skip to main content

Lent 2025: March 21

 Observing a season like Lent, at least in the way I am, requires a self-examination and humility, at the very least. 

Short note: the President of our college, who is a devout Byzantine Catholic (that is a faction I had never heard of before he came to us), stopped by at Baptist Collegiate Ministries yesterday to see what we were doing. We invited him to eat, but he said he was doing keto and giving up carbs for Lent. (a church had brought Stouffer's Lasagna, very tasty but I had massive heartburn afterward and had not taken my meds for it). I have not focused on giving up something for my health, although I have stopped watching most of media or TV I used to, which I will continue. 

For me, a family member (in-law) died this week and I got pressured into going to the service tomorrow in another state. This deceased person was highly irresponsible and left a wake of hurt.  It's a 6-7 hours car trip with my husband, and we will have to spend the night in a hotel. I am not excited but resigned. My first response was feeling trapped and quite angry. The Spirit of repentance and humility of this season of looking toward the cross convicted and rebuked me of this selfishness and childishness. Plus, I have gotten far too set in my ways about going anywhere, and that needs to stop. I have lost joy about being. Why? Again, lack of gratitude explains so much. 

So, my reflection today is the goodness of God. The abundance and grace and outpouring of gifts seen and unseen, physical and spiritual, human and inanimate. Americans are foolish. The more we have the more we complain about it. We buy things that require so much extra time to take care of. 

I finished the Lament book and need a book to read for Bible study. Romans? Or John Piper's 50 Reasons Jesus Came to Die?  (I rarely recommend books but I do that one, although he misses a few.) We have such a superficial understanding of that subject, it's disturbing. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Birdwatching

 Whose world is this, anyway? My husband came out to the deck where I was reading, thinking, and taking long pauses to listen to birds and watch them visit the feeders. Nala and Butter were keeping the the squirrels away. The cardinals, like kings, were making sure they were fed first but wrens, sparrows, finches, robins, swifts sat in the trees calling and cackling. My Cornell Labs app has identified 18 in 18 minutes, some new ones included. “How interesting that God made all the birds have distinctive calls,” I said. “But I guess they are calling to their own kind, their mate and children.” “Do you think they are talking to each other?” he said. “Not like we do, no communicating, but signaling.” “I thought they were singing for us.” We laughed about that; our human-centric, self-centered view of things takes over. “They sing and make noises when we are not here, so it’s not for us. If they are singing for anyone, it’s God.” I had read Samuel’s speech to the nation in I Samuel 12,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Keeping Up Appearances? David's Surprise Anointing to Be King

  Have you ever watched the show, Keeping Up Appearances? What it is. A comedy about a British woman who wants to be thought of as very high class even though her family is low class. Her name is Hyacinth Bucket but she pronounces it Bouquet. She wants everything perfect but her family works against her, and her neighbors run from her. We all know someone who wants to keep up appearances, and sometimes we do. In our everyday life, we depend on our eyes and we automatically trust them, at least at first, and we often don’t look closely or below the surface. Like puzzles. But we know that appearances can be deceiving, even though they catch us. So I wanted to show this video I saw recently because it’s disturbing but informative. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FERa1AI2EK8 AI has gotten far better on making these deep fakes—videos that are not of anyone but totally generated by the software. Even though they look like someone, they are not. Of course, it is stealing fro...
Post a Comment
Read more