Today is Ash Wednesday and we begin our faith journey during this season of Lent.  Today is a day of preparing ourselves for the forty days leading to Holy Week and Easter.  It is about becoming empty so that we can be filled.  It is a day for realizing we are nothing without God.  All that we are and all that we have is a gift from God.

Today we become empty so we can be open to what God wants to give us.  Being open is a prerequisite for spiritual growth.  In her book “The Finding Stone” Christine Lore Weber writes this, “All of life is a beginning.  I need an open, spontaneous, joyful attitude that knows it does not know.  I need an emptiness in me….I need to find the part in my soul still empty, still able to be surprised, still open to wonder.”

A good image is for us to enter Lent as empty bowls.  Sue Bender in “Everyday Sacred” writes about the Begging Bowl.  “All I knew about a begging bowl was that each day a monk goes out with an empty bowl in his hands.  Whatever is placed in this bowl will be his nourishment for the day.  I don’t know whether I was the monk, or the bowl, or the things that would fill the bowl, or all three.”  (And I would say that’s a great question!)

I want to share with you two special bowls I have chosen as Begging Bowls for this Lenten Journey.  The first is a bowl from Siena, Italy.

I eat my fruit every morning out of this same bowl.  It is a replica of a portion of a marble inlaid floor in the cathedral called the Duomo in Siena.  Here is a photo of the Duomo.

If you look closely you can see the floor outside the front of the Duomo is also inlaid designs.  I love that the bowl contains the essence of something so beautifully created in the 13-14 century.  It reminds me that God is Creator and brings the gift of creativity and all creation.  I am God’s creature and God continually creates anew in me.  I am open to receive.  My second bowl is my Grandmother’s…

I love the color of this big bowl.  I love that my grandmother’s hands made peach cobbler for dinner in this bowl when they had no other food.  It reminds me of her life during the Great Depression and how her faith relied on God to provide.  Each day this Lent I want to trust God to provide.

Our question today is “What are you seeking?”  Jesus asks this question of his disciples in John 1:38 as he sees them following him.  Their answer is a question and is profound, “Where are YOU staying?”.  Jesus says, “Come and you will see”.  It was not about WHAT.  It was about WHO, and the person is Jesus.  We too are seeking Jesus in this faith journey of Lent.  We present ourselves as empty bowls ready to be filled and Jesus says, “Come and you will see!”

Something to think about….

What bowl would you choose for this journey of Lent…and why?

How will you become open?

nk