Morning by morning
God wakens my ear
so my tongue may learn
to sustain weary souls
with a word.
What word, Lord?
Persevere?
Submit?
Endure?
Those who speak
hope to the weary—
“Come to me, all you who
labor and are heavy-burdened…”
for “I have a dream…”—
are liable
to humiliation,
torment,
death…
vindication!
Waken my ear…
teach my tongue…
help my spirit, O Lord,
that I may speak a word
and not be put to shame.
—Judith Boogaart
A friend of ours who cleans offices tells us about emptying trash, that a person’s trash reveals a lot about them. It’s almost an intimate kind of duty, because you see candy wrappers and a lot of other things that indicate a person’s habits. I think the same thing about garbage day in our neighborhood: there’s so much stuff out there. How do we have so much, that we throw so much away?
Matthew 6 is often used as the Ash Wednesday text, starting us off with warnings about how to practice our piety. Lent is a good time to practice resistance—resistance to consume, even when it’s as simple as resisting popping yet another piece of candy into my mouth.
Of course, Lent is about so much more than not eating candy. It’s about arresting some of our habits to intentionally reflect on our spiritual condition apart from the stuff we surround ourselves with. What, really, are the treasures I want to store up that nurture my spiritual awareness of God’s movement?
No wonder it is so helpful to sing, “Be still and know that I am God.” Being still allows me to attend to my heartbeats—literal and spiritual heartbeats—and to separate myself from the trash that may divert me from knowing God, and being known by God.
—Cindi Veldheer DeYoung
Meditations for People of Hope 