A New Neighborhood

“I imagine Lent for you and for me as a great departure from the
greedy, anxious anti-neighborliness of our economy,
a great departure from our exclusionary politics that fears the other,
a great departure from self-indulgent consumerism that devours creation.
And then an arrival in a new neighborhood, because it is a gift to be simple,
it is a gift to be free; it is a gift to come down where we ought to be.”
 
― Walter Brueggemann, A Way Other Than Our Own: Devotions for Lent

​February 25, 2020
 
Beloved:
            I appreciate my friend and colleague John Vanderzee for posting this perfect introduction to Lent.  I especially love the phrase “a great departure” for describing the spiritual intention of the season.
            Here are some other devotional ideas for spiritual practice this Lenten season.  I look forward to your feedback and conversation as we walk and worship together through the coming days.
 

• Read your Bible every day of Lent.  Choose a gospel or a poet and read beginning to end.  Read slowly and ponder the text.  If you’d like a reading guide, check out the app I like lately, https://www.dailylectio.net/pages/about.  I have it on my phone, and when I open it today’s passages are right there.  My favorite online Bible also offers daily readings and devotionals at https://www.youversion.com/the-bible-app/.
• The Busted Halo home page offers twenty-five spiritual practices besides giving up chocolate over the Lenten season. bustedhalo.com/ministry-resources/25-great-things-you-can-do-for-lent
• Another from Busted Halo - calendar with 40 pray*fast*give microchallenges anyone can do.  https://lent.bustedhalo.com/
• Watch the 1989 movie Jesus of Montreal on YouTube.  In French with English subtitles.  Very dated, brief nudity in a few scenes, two or three more contain profanity.  A group of artists are hired to produce The Passion Play for a Montreal Parish and, naturally, the Passion plays out all over again.  Watch for all the subtle and not-so-subtle references to various gospel scenes.  Organize a party to watch it together and discuss!  www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiBBl4bNINM (1hr, 58 min)
• Read the book chosen for our Lenten reading group, The Journals of John Woolman.  Woolman was an eighteenth-century Quaker committed to Jesus’ teachings about peace and justice in his everyday life.  We have books available at the church for purchase ($12) or to borrow.  Sign up soon, including weekly days/times you can meet for discussion.  I will schedule about three gatherings during Lent.  Please do read the assigned pages to attend the gatherings!                               
• In conjunction with the Woolman book, I recommend seeing the movie Harriet, depicting Harriet Tubman and the underground railroad prior to and just after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.  The movie emphasizes Tubman’s intimate relationship with God.  No longer showing in theaters, so I watched it on Amazon Prime for about $6.

 ~peace & prayers, 
pastor annette