How quiet contemplation revealed a hidden need?

With the start of the season of Lent, a sharp-eyed churchgoer/church on-line watcher will spot changes in the Sanctuary. Ask your family members what they notice. First up, the colors have switched! The purple paraments are back. (Paraments are the hangings that adorn the pulpit, or the extra “garments,” the stoles the clergy wear. Did you know that each season of the Church Year has a different color?)

Wonder with your family: why purple for Lent?

cross in the sanctuary on Ash Wednesday And secondly, the empty, “old rugged cross” is back… watch it progress slowly—week to week—on it’s Lenten journey from the back of the church all the way to the front.

Do you wonder what if it blocks your view in church?

Discuss with your family what the recurrence of this on-the-move cross says to you.

Both of these alterations are relatively innocuous.

Or are they signals of something bigger? Something like…

Hey, it’s Lent! It’s time to intentionally put God at the center of your life.

But how is that suppose to happen?

Going into Lent I was conflicted. I knew that I needed/wanted to “do” something specific to mark my travel through Lent, to turn my thoughts toward the reason why Easter is important… but I wasn’t sure what to do. Give something up? Take something on? Then I got my answer at last night’s Ash Wednesday worship service.

It was a Taizé style service, consisting of meditative, repeated songs and scripture interspersed with periods of silent contemplation.

And in that quiet… I found peace.

Ah ha! I needed an injection of peace—some sacred time.

I needed to pull back from my day-to-day stuff and experience the divine.

imparting ashes on Ash Wednesday At this service there were the sacred rituals of the sharing of bread and juice in Holy Communion, and the imposition of ashes—the part where “dust” gets etched onto our foreheads with the words, “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return. Repent and believe.”

Lent begins with this sign—ashes. The ashes are symbolic of death. I need to let my old ways die. I need to try something new.

So I went home and created an “altar.” On an old board I placed a few “special” rocks, a sprig of fake flowers, a pinch pot made by my son when he was 5 years old… It is a place for me to linger, to allow my soul to be in quiet contemplation.

I plan to add and subtract from my holy space as I feel the whim. I plan to “visit” every day.

Lenten altar