“They kept each other in contact with a pattern that was very old and endlessly fruitful—the vulnerable pattern of the universe, which is always, it seems, beginning anew.” Richard Rohr As winter turns to spring and Lent turns toward Easter, I am reminded of those endless patterns which traverse darkness and light, night and day, grief and joy. And I am intrigued by Rohr’s coupling of “vulnerable” with “pattern”?! An eternal pattern might be usually associated with certainty or strength but vulnerable?   Perhaps the wonder of the word is in its counter-cultural significance of openness and porousness. Perhaps vulnerability does not indicate non-eternity; rather a vulnerable pattern is one which embraces all creation in all its nuanced variety and holds it, holds us, in a timeless journey toward resurrection life, new, unique and “fruitful”. The pattern is at first glance of sameness but its elements are varied. Sunrise and sunset, count on them to occur and never repeat in color. Wi

  Lent asks this question of us: Who are you becoming in the wilderness? At minimum we might be thinking about this and many questions differently, pondering them deeply. At minimum Lent invites us into a freedom of consideration not experienced previously. Pastor and author A. W. Tozer once wrote, “What we think about when we are free to think about what we will – that is what we are or will soon become.” This challenging sentence presents challenging opportunity. ( I still have to read it at least three times to begin to understand it!) What do you think about when you are free to think about anything you want? assumes we are even able to access such freedom, to cast off the shackles of shoulds! Many of us think this a crazy absurd question. From the moment we are born we are taught to “think” certain things, what to eat, how to act, how to feel. We are bombarded with the should of becoming…or we are becoming the shoulds. Jesus bids us into the wilderness of Lent, or of our lives, to

  “Belonging so fully to yourself that you’re willing to stand alone is a wilderness…an untamed, unpredictable place of solitude and searching. It is a place as dangerous as it is breathtaking, a place as sought after as it is feared. The wilderness can often feel unholy because we can’t control it, or what people think about our choice of whether to venture into that vastness or not. But it turns out to be the place of true belonging, and it’s the bravest and most sacred place you will ever stand.” brene brown I rarely think about courage. I rarely think of myself as courageous. Recently, however, I am realizing that one of the most difficult and most courageous things I might be doing is venturing into the wilderness which is me, my true self. Shedding the certainties and securities I once thought were promised and yet disappointed, leaves me alone with myself. At first I scrambled to inhabit another certainty or to manufacture one. But slowly…so painfully slowly, I have, in retreat

  “Suddenly there it is in silhouette - a single, noble winter tree, black against the pale sky. You stop because you must. What is so compelling here? There is a magnificent, creative loneliness in it - the way it stands isolated in the wide reaches of the fields, darkly melancholy. There is struggle in the twisted writhing branches, as if growth and survival have not been easily come by. There is strength in the way it has been exposed mercilessly to the storms. Yet is has endured, taking on dignity with the visitations of frost, snow, and ice. There is acceptance in its open display of imperfection. Most of all…there is honesty in the starkness of a winter tree. Stripped of all pretense and embellishment, nothing is there but the tree’s own truth. Before the eyes of all it lives the way it is - nothing more. In its utter, exposed openness it is a kind of prayer.” Mary Jean Irion This is the image and prayer I contemplating in this wilderness of Lent. It speaks eloquently and resound