March Journal

March 12

I’m not sure if I’ve written about my Lenten discipline this year, but I bought a book from the Spires Shopping Centre, and it’s pretty good. It’s about a 15-minute chunk out of my morning, six days a week, and includes prayer, readings, devotional, and reflection/journaling. It’s nothing too deep, but it’s nice and keeps me grounded in the season. I would have liked to do a fast, but with my marathon training (another daily discipline, if I look at it that way) would prevent me from doing that healthily. This year may be one of the slowest or least intense Lenten seasons that I’ve taken part in compared to other years. In turn, it seems to me that I’m getting less out of this disciple that I otherwise would expect to. Is it possible that the philosophers are right? That you only get out of these sessions what you put in? Will it be the most sacrifice that reaps the most significant spiritual reward? Could be…or I could be suffering from four miles of running and a pot of coffee before 8:30am.

14 March

So, teaching at St. Patrick’s is fantastic. I really am enjoying it more than most any other job that I’ve done this year. I love the thought of an American protestant teaching in a Catholic boys school in N. Belfast. So far I’ve done a lesson on the introduction of who I am and where I come from, with an introductory page for the boys to fill out and my second lesson was on the history of the Church of Christ: Disciples of Christ. Now I have two weeks off for St. Patrick’s Day and Easter. After that, I’m planning on starting up with a game of ‘Stump the Protestant’. I hope the kids get as much a kick out of it as I did coming up with the name of the game.

The class that I get to work with on Thursdays is fantastic. They are engaged, alert, openly question, suggest options, follow directions and are well behaved. I’m very happy to be working with these boys and glad that Melanie Ghetty was willing to bring me in from outside and teach.

27 March

Easter Sunday. Happy Easter to one and all. So, earlier in the month I wrote about how my Lenten discipline this year hasn’t been all that I had hoped for and wanted to reflect on that. I guess this’ll make for good reading in the monthly update. Maybe that’s what I’ll try and do for the updates, a little bit about what’s been going on and then a bit more on how I’ve felt and evaluated about what’s going on. That could work.

I finished my Lenten season yesterday. I was just glad to get through this book that I had been reading. It was no, “The Purpose Driven Life” but it still wasn’t very good. I really thought that a morning devotional, prayer, reading, meditation, journaling for those forty days would be good. I had hoped that it would bring me into Easter ready for the season. I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t prepared. Lesson learned: put only a little into my spiritual life, get only a little out.

I don’t think that in the past forty days I sacrificed enough. I don’t feel like I gave up enough to be meaningful. And I know that it had something to do with the materials I studied from for Lent. I didn’t feel challenged by the author’s questions. I can’t count the number of times the author asked silly questions like, “Do you feel that you should hold onto a grudge or try and let it go?” Mainly there were questions where the answer was clear even if I hadn’t been meditating on the scripture and lesson. The author used the Sermon on the Mount as his texts for the jumping off point for the meditations. They were simplistic, elementary, and really could have been pushed a lot further. I felt as if the author had the chance to really challenge me as a reader and pussyfooted around the issue. I should have looked more closely when I was choosing a devotional.

I had thought that solitude in the morning would do me good, would help me relate and interact with scripture in a more intense way. Occasionally it did, but often I just felt frustrated by the author and the prayers he had written. I think that I prefer a small group, even a dyad, to question and probe about with scripture. I get flummoxed when there is a single author telling me what to think and me left to work with only the text and analysis.

Now I am left asking myself what to do now. Lent is over. My forty days are up and I am meant to move into the Church’s ordinary time. I get to move out of the time of preparation, out of the time of mourning, and into the time where Jesus is risen. I’m just not ready for it.

So, gentle reader, here’s my lesson for Lent. Give something up. Really give it up. Do without. Suffer. Meditate. Pray. Work through Lent with a partner, with a group, with a network and prepare yourself for the glory that is to be found in Easter morning. I know that this morning that glory was there, that I was invited to draw close to the veil that separates heaven and earth, and I wasn’t ready for it. I think I wasted this Lent.