Lent Dance: A Turning Back, A Turning Toward

Wednesday, 17 February, marks Ash Wednesday, when the Season of Lent begins for Christians. What makes Ash Wednesday and Lent significant, year after year?

A Christian Response

I engage in daily prayer and meditation. Over dozens of years, a variety of spiritual practices have, at one time or another, given life, been shed, and occasionally re-embraced. A consistent thread is to make deliberate time periods for intentional reflection and turning toward God. Why is this important? In this time of my life I want to be a whole person, delightfully alive, and hallowed into radical authenticity and vivid presence. I know that God unabashedly loves me—and everyone who I desire to serve with mutuality, friendship, and compassionate care. I want to participate as fully as I can in God’s ongoing love affair with humanity and all of the cosmos.

Spirituality is not a separate part of who I am every day—it is embodied and experienced through my senses and life particulars. I welcome the defined time period of Lent to turn to God with my whole self. This turning is ultimately toward the world.

An Olympic Story

Tonight I watched Olympic figure skating, pondered Lent, and allowed the Hebrew Scripture, “Return to me with your whole heart” (Jl 2:12) to glide within me. I looked at ice dancers become grace in motion—turning, spinning, twirling, arching, moving towards, away, tucking and reaching. I visually experienced the spiritual journey. Surely it encompasses all these moves. We are not meant to be spectators in life! We are invited to engage, participate, train, fall, glide, spin, embrace, and turn towards one another and God. Music dances through our soul, as rhythm glides into expression in our body and daily life.

Spiritual Guidance

Ash Wednesday and Lent invite a fresh turning—or return—to God’s embrace. As much as each of us is on a solitary journey, it is also communal. Meeting with a spiritual director can encourage genuine seeking and conversion. During spiritual direction we are accompanied in our turning to God with our whole heart, broken heart, or dancing heart.

Will you join me in turning toward spiritual practice, a daily discipline, and a radical acceptance of wholeness and connection with all of creation? Lent can spring the frozen places in our heart and actions, thaw our resistance to compassionate love, and grow our sacred dance with the Beloved.

If you are seeking a spiritual director to accompany you, click here to discover good questions and spiritual directors to interview through the online, searchable: Seek and Find: A Worldwide Resource Guide of Available Spiritual Directors.

Note: I wrote this post for my work with Spiritual Directors International. It is on the SDI blog, and titled Lent Dance: A Turning Back, A Turning Toward by Pegge Bernecker.

The Next Best Step

I’m standing at a crossroad in my life. Whenever I encounter times like this I try to remember to stop and breathe deeply, noticing where my attention is focused. Occasionally I am surprised, and receive immediate guidance to move forward. At other times, I discover that I really am stuck by not-knowing, fear, uncertainty, or the knowledge the best next step isn’t clear–or it isn’t time to be made, just yet.

In his book Getting Things Done, David Allen quotes Will Rogers: “When you find yourself in a whole, stop digging.” I think this is valuable advice! Too often I dig around for all sorts of solutions and future scenarios, instead of being patient and willing to dwell in the “both and” of the here and now allowing something else to emerge. Maybe even something I never could have anticipated.

So, those pesky crossroad times. How do we discover the courage to step beyond our own comfort zone, and respond yes to someone, something, or some purpose? I think it is probable that the relationships we cultivate can provide a greater understanding of our purpose and action in the world. I know I see the hunger and pain in the world and this affects me, and moves my heart of compassion. But how do we know—with authenticity and integrity—when a response is called forth or required from us? And, what is the valuable role of waiting, or even of resistance?

The poet David Whyte offers guidance to slow down in his poem “Start Close In” with these words:

“Start close in,
don’t take the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don’t want to take.”

Maybe at this particular crossroads, my “first thing” close in, my step I “don’t want to take” is to stand still just a little longer, and resist the impulse for action. I need to stop digging for the second or third best step, and just be still. I can pay attention to the wisdom of my body–where I feel expansion and contraction. During times like this, I really appreciate talking with trusted friends, and meeting with my spiritual director.

How about you?
Is there crossroad you face in your life? Perhaps it’s a major decision, or even something that to someone else might seem insignificant. Could it be that a dose of stillness, deep breathing, and paying attention to the relationships you cultivate might offer you some guidance? What is the step you don’t want to take?

The Next Best Step Posted by PeggeBernecker at 3/29/2009 3:33 PM CDT      http://www.chron.com/channel/houstonbelief/commons/searching.html