Lenten Listening

We have entered the Lenten season. Are you exploring any new Lenten practices? Sticking to the traditional ones of fasting, service, and repentance? Letting go of something tangible or even intangible like a mindset or way of reacting? It is not too late to answer the divine invitation to practice Lent. 

Here are some thoughts that I have been pondering about Lent as I listen deeply to this season’s lessons.  Maybe something will stir within your soul as you listen.

I shared two weeks ago this thought:

“I feel this year to enter Lent with silence, stillness and a listening heart. I hope to increase my morning prayer time with quiet contemplation on the gracious and grandeur of God and the love and sacrifice of Jesus. I am asking the Holy Spirit to show me what obstacles I cling to that prevents me for fully loving the Trinity and to create space in my heart for more and More. “

I have been sitting in silence and stillness and listening this Lenten season. God has reminded me Lent is not about performance. Along with my word of the year – WAY – I am creating space in my heart to draw nearer to God and learn the way of the Lord.

Yet some mornings the to-do list interrupts my quiet time. I fidget instead of resting in God.

My mind scatters from one idea to another imaginative thought – getting lost down deep rabbit trails.

I am learning though, to return. Come back to the Center. Keep practicing. And God is always there waiting for me. Why does that surprise me so?

God doesn’t require perfection. God wants us to return, to draw near with open and willing hearts. Even a small moment and a simple prayer is received with love and grace. Occasionally my practice is simply to look up and smile – and sometimes I feel God smiling back.

“Lent is the springtime of the soul.”  St. Francis de Sales.

This quote reminds me Lent is the beginning, the first sprouting of new life. What is God creating new within each of us? Again, I return with that question in my quiet time and listen. To sit with God and hold an honest, real conversation. Two friends (am I being too bold to say friend?) sharing what is going on within us. What might be growing in my soul that will lead to new life?

Kate Bowler wrote last week: “Lent is not designed to fix us. It’s a season that tells the truth about what it means to be human—finite, dependent, unfinished. It’s a season that refuses the cultural lie that everything is solvable if we just try harder, think better thoughts, or curate our lives more carefully… Lent is a recalibration. It doesn’t ask us to be cheerful. It asks us to be honest. About our exhaustion. About our fear. About the disappointments we carry quietly. About the ache we keep trying to outgrow, numb, or spiritualize away. This, my dears, is not a failure of faith. It’s where it begins.”

And two friends can be honest with one another in conversations and being present with the other. So I am honest with God, reaching out into his vast friendship.

This year I am “walking” again with another friend, the mystic Julian of Norwich.  She wrote in her reflections that the soul has two duties: “We must reverently wonder and be surprised” and the second one to “let go gently and let be, always delighting in God.”

Julian’s comments linger with me, so I bring them into Lent – to ponder and listen. I sense I am being invited to pay attention to the hidden holy within each day. I look more intently for God’s presence and bow down in “wonder and surprise.” Moments of worship throughout the day!  Then also to let go of worries, anxiety, and the “what if’s” that block me for living and loving fully focused on God’s goodness and grace. “Always delighting in God” – what a Lenten practice that could be!

Lenten listening is drawing me into God’s presence where I am finding wisdom, unexpected lessons, and soul-shaping love. I will keep listening, leaning inward, and learning the ways of God. May it be so.

What are you learning as you listen in Lent this year?