The Slow Way: Lent is a Journey Inward
Lent is a season to notice at our own longings and fears and bring them to the light. We remove distractions so we’re more likely to look our secrets in the eye.
We’ve entered Lent, the season that brought me into the practice of living by the Christian calendar twenty-two years ago, when I first discovered that the life of faith could be marked by seasons of sorrow and clarity, as well as seasons of joy. (Both were needed!) Until I discovered Lent, I was under the impression that being a Christian required lots of being “joyful,” whether or not life was currently being kind to you. And that pressure—something I found often in the evangelical church—created an expectation of pretense. All around me in my young adulthood the people of faith I knew seemed to be doing their best to exist on the edges of their lives so they could appear (or even convince themselves) that their lives of faith were making them happy.
The further I’ve walked from that form of Christianity, the more I've come to experience that particular cultural expectation—its pious assumption of outward joy—as confusing and even dangerous. Like many of us, I’m not shocked when another prominent Christian leader is outed for inappropriate relational patterns, abusive behaviors, or layers of secret sexual relationships. To lead in that particular form of Christianity requires looking fulfilled and put together. To step out of that expectation is to risk your very life as you’ve known it, your community, your job. When a man who has led in a church is revealed to have a secret life, I assume their secret life is almost a shock to them as much as it is to everyone else. We humans can do a lot of psychological tricks to make sure we’re safe in the group we belong to, even if it's convincing ourselves that we are solid people of faith, people who belong in the group that insists we be good and present ourselves happy.
But when we come close to the teaching of Jesus we see a deep insistence on self-honesty. In order to love others as we love ourselves, we first must learn to love ourselves. In order to receive the blessing of the Beatitudes, which I argue in my new book is a kind of wholeness or flourishing, we must first journey to the core of who we are. There is no room for pretense in the invitation of Jesus. Following his Way is always a movement toward the center—our core—and never an insistence on surface level shine. To live any other way than the hard path toward inner honesty is to live like the Pharisees in the stories of Jesus, the ones he accused of being “white-washed tombs”—committed to rules on the outside but full of death on the inside.
So what does this have to do with Lent? Just like any religious ritual, Lent can be its own surface level pretense. We can choose a way to fast, a thing to add. We can read a book for forty days. We can appear to make personal sacrifices. But there’s nothing magical about Lent, any more than the rest of the Christian calendar is magical. What makes Lent powerful is its insistence on not celebrating, on demanding a season of restraint. What makes Lent powerful is that it invites us to make a choice toward honesty with God and ourselves, a choice to get solemn about what we discover in our core, and live that restraint on the outside.
The season of Lent is a forty day invitation to go inward. To move from the edges of our lives to the deep, heavy center of us. Why do we do what we do? What do we hide from others? What do we most regret? What fears and doubts compel our outer choices? Lent is an invitation to feel the hurt we’d rather ignore. It’s an invitation to study the way we use our time, the reactions we have, the secrets we keep from others. There’s a reason we fast during Lent: When we remove distractions we’re more likely to look our secrets in the eye.
I’m not a fan of taking away good things just to take them away. The choices we make during Lent ought to have a connection. If we have a glass of wine every night there just might be an invisible string connecting that drink to something deeper in our core. That’s the exploration that giving up alcohol for the six weeks of Lent affords. What is the string between what you do and who you are?
I am constantly listening to audiobooks in my earbuds when I’m doing tasks around the house. I actually never knew how much daily picking up, dishes, and laundry I did a week until I started churning through one and a half novels each week in my earbuds. I’m quieting those audiobooks during this season, not because listening to novels is wrong, but because I’ve come to depend on that sound to fill the silence. I long for that distraction. And I have a feeling that my longing for distraction has something to teach me about my core.
Lent is a preparation season, a season to look steadily at our own longings and secrets and bring them to the light. It’s a season of practicing the kind of faith that believes God is not just interested in the appearance of having it together. God is interested in our wholeness. And wholeness always requires honesty.
Wholeness is also never a product. It’s not a thing that can be held or finished. We are only ever becoming whole, ever being made new. This week I’ve been reading Sarah Bessey’s new book, which I’m excited to write more about next week. In one of her early chapters she quotes Brian McClaren in his book Faith After Doubt when he says, “God is not a destination. Like a river, like a road, God takes us somewhere. . .The deeper we go in the love of God, the deeper we are led into all God loves.”
When my boys were little I prayed the same prayer for them each night as they were falling asleep. I said something like, “May they know how much you love them, and may they learn to love all that you love.”
These days, my youngest son Ace is not a fan of my long prayers before bed. He only has patience for a thirty second prayer before he gently pushes my shoulder in an “Okay, mom, please leave me alone now,” move. I try to listen. But I still try to get that small request in. That Ace might love the things God loves. It seems to me that this might be the most important prayer we offer on our journey toward wholeness.
Can we think of Lent this way? There’s a reason the calendar brings us back to Lent year after year, a reminder that God is like a road, like a river. That the move toward our own wholeness is along this river, this God that moves the world and moves us.
Our wholeness is found in all that God loves, and we discover what God loves—creation, truth, beauty, the fruits of the Spirit—as we move along in communion with the current. What is Lent but an opportunity to remind us of that communion?
A Slow Practice
As we begin the season of Lent, I want us to move through a small spiritual inventory. This will help us consider the sort of practice that may invite us closer to our core so that we can enter this season with honesty and authenticity.
Like the God who is a journey, so is Lent. It is a forty day practice. (Just a reminder that “practicing” assumes there will be mess-ups. We can shake off those imperfections and continue on the path we’ve begun.) How do we know if we should give something up or add something on? How do we enter into this season with a sense of authenticity so that what we choose comes from a place of health and lightness, not rote obligation?
Try this inventory as a way to consider how and why you will practice this Lenten season:
Start with a deep breath. Breathe in. Breathe out.
You can pray something like this: You, Holy One, are not a destination. You are like a river or a road. Help me move along the way you are already moving. This Lent, teach me to see myself and your invitation more clearly.
In the presence of God, consider these questions. You can pull out a journal for these or choose to answer them prayerfully in your mind:
Is there any action, relationship, technology, or substance I use to consistently distract myself from paying attention to my feelings, thoughts, or discomforts? If so, how do I use it to distract myself?
In an ideal world where I am not bored, distracted, or too busy, how do I most easily connect with God?
Is there a practice that might make that ideal connection with God more possible? (For example, perhaps I feel most in touch with the Spirit when I’m in the natural world, when I’m serving others in a meaningful way, or when I’m reading.) Is there a way I can rearrange my time to make that particular action a weekly option?
Is there anything in my life I can subtract to help me pay attention to the work of God in my life? (For example, if I rely on alcohol in the evening to relax, how might giving that drink up at night help me tune in more clearly to all the good and the pain I’ve been avoiding? How might taking earbuds out of my ears and allowing myself to be bored help me pay attention to my own internal challenges or conflicts? How might saying no to something seemingly good in my life for the next 40 days allow me more time for the connection with God that I crave?)
After you spend time with these questions, see if anything rises to the surface for you. What is your next step? My hope for you is that you will hold Lent with an open hand. If you don’t yet have a practice for this season, it’s fine! You can adjust. You can sit with your answers to these questions for a while. You can lean into your commitment next week. What matters is that you allow this season to open you up to trying something new, for the sake of your connection with the God who like a river. Are you open to moving? Are you open to being moved?
End with the same prayer you began with: You, Holy One, are not a destination. You are like a river or a road. Help me move along the way you are already moving. This Lent, teach me to see myself and your invitation more clearly.
A Note:
This weekend in your last chance to sign up for my zoom soul-care workshop “Embracing Our Limits, Discovering Our Wholeness,” which I’ll be leading a week from this Saturday, February 24. This is a workshop available to my paid subscribers! If you’ve signed up already, I’ll be sending you and informational email this Tuesday, February 20th.
If you’re interested in being part this workshop along with the Blessed Are the Rest of Us book club I’ll be hosting this spring, consider becoming a paid subscriber for $5 a month. I offer The Slow Way letter free every week, so this is a way of supporting my work!
Also, you can preorder the book right now at Baker Book House, where it’s 40% off the price of other booksellers. The first 200 preorders over there will receive a signed copy and a super fun temporary “The Lucky Few” tattoo!
Thank you for this.
Thank you for helping me get centred.
Btw, Brian's last name is McLaren, just do folks can find him.