This painting can be found in the book “Ladder of Angels” by Madeleine Engle.  The artist is Galia Malol, age 10,  from Jerusalem.  The question for today is found in John 4:9.  Jesus is tired from a long day’s journey.  He encounters a woman at a well in Samaria and says, “Give me a drink”.  Her question of Jesus is “How is it that you a Jew asks for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?”

The woman knows that a man who is a Jew would not be associating with her for two reasons…she is a Samaritan and she is a woman.  But there are things Jesus seems to know about her that she does not realize he can see (thus the blue lips from eating the cupcake??), or perhaps a truth she does not even realize herself.

Finally she goes back to town as a witness proclaiming, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did.  Can this be the Christ?”  I am struck by the fact that this woman realizes the love of Jesus because he KNOWS her!  Perhaps love in this story is expressed and understood in knowing and being known.  Someone knows the deepest truths about her and loves her unconditionally.  I think about people in my own life who I feel have known me most deeply.  My Dad is one of those people.

Don’t you love his smile?  My Dad was a very fun loving, risk taking sort of guy who I think related to me and understood me  more than anyone else when I was growing up.  When I tried to hide some of the truths about my escapades by telling half-truths, he always seemed to be able to see through it all and confront me with the truth.  This resulted in my feeling embarrassment and /or shame, yet not as much condemned as understood and deeply known.  I felt somehow that perhaps he was more like me., that maybe he had been where I was, and he just KNEW.  He loved me anyway.  Deep down, we both knew we were really alike.

The story of the woman of Samaria has intrigued me.  I have found myself somehow in her shoes.  I think it has to do with the fact that one feels very loved when the deepest truths about them are known and confronted, yet they feel loved and understood in spite of their less than perfect self.  I am truly blessed by the people in my life who know me, understand me, and love me anyway.  Lent is a time for the truth.  Jesus came to save us from our failure and sin. He knows and He loves!  His love is redeeming.

Thoughts to ponder….

Who is it that knows you?

Is there a time when Jesus met you at the well?

nk

 

It is an interesting day of Lent around here.  There is a garage sale going on at the church and my husband is outside in the backyard with several of his suits and a brush.  He is not trying to remove any “lint” on them. He is literally “dusting them off” to give away.  He says, “You can sorta tell it’s time when a suit has a vest to it!”  Oh my gosh…as I am watching the dust fly out of that vest while he is pounding it with the brush, I am thinking, “Did he really wear that?”  He then proceeds to tell me that all those suits are in really great shape.  “I just wasn’t very hard on them”, he says proudly.

Meanwhile, the security system guy is here to connect our new windows.  Now my husband comes out of his closet carrying the security box and proclaims, “The guy says they don’t make these anymore!”

Next come the golf shoes…

I especially like how he dated them.  Looks like they were “in the rough” a little more than the suits!

Yes, it’s a Lenten kind of day around here!  “You can’t put new wine in old wineskins”, Jesus says. (Matthew 9:17)  Jesus is bringing new wine on this journey of Lent we are on.  Cleaning out the old is important and necessary.

In the third chapter of the book of John, Nicodemus, a religious leader, is told by Jesus that he must be born again to see the kingdom of God.  Nicodemus asks a question of Jesus, “How can a man be born when he is old?”  Jesus responds, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.  So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

We are on our faith journey of Lent.  I think I hear a breeze blowing around here today! And somewhere out there mighty winds are blowing, bringing about new birth…

This is a photo taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of mighty winds creating a massive star birth called N 159 taking place 170,000 light years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud. How can something be born when it is that old?  Ah, the wonderful mysterious ways of the mighty winds of the Spirit captured in a click of the camera!

Pondering thoughts…

Is there something old you might clean out to be ready for the new?

How might you hear the wind of the Spirit awakening the Mystery around you and within you?

(Have a great weekend.  Take a look at the stars if you can.  I’ll be back here Monday morning)

nk

The story of Bartimaeus the blind beggar comes from Mark 10:46-52.  Jesus and the disciples were entering Jericho when Jesus heard a blind man crying out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.”  Calling Jesus “Son of David” meant the blind man understood Jesus to be the Messiah, the Savior, which most of the crowd and even disciples did not totally understand yet.  So ironically the blind man, the only one who can’t see, is the one who actually sees.

When Jesus calls him to come, the blind man throws off his cloak, and leaps up.  Since blind beggars use their cloaks to collect any offerings tossed their way, Bartemaeus was surrendering what he had by tossing it aside to come to Jesus. Then Jesus asks the question, “What do you want me to do for you?”  He responds, “I want to see.”  Jesus says, “Your faith has made you whole.”  The word here in Greek for “made whole” means salvation.  Bartemaeus receives the gift of salvation through eyes of faith.

I saw this sculpture in a monastery in Turin, Italy.  It is one of the most dramatic portrayals of Jesus’ gift of salvation that I have seen.  All we have to do to receive this gift is believe.

During this journey of Lent we will be hearing the questions Jesus asks of us.  In “Letters to a Young Poet”, Ranier Marie Rilke says,

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue.  Do not now seek the answers which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them.  And the point is, to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

We look to Jesus with eyes of faith, even when we can’t yet see….and we live into the question. Once when I was on a personal spiritual retreat, I found this picture in a magazine and cut it out to glue into my journal.

Something about this picture brought tears to my eyes.  It seemed to be something I wanted, but I didn’t fully understand why.  All I knew was that it had something to do with the light and warmth, and intimacy radiating from inside the small cabin.  With eyes of faith, I live into the question Jesus asks, “What do you want me to do for you?”

Something to think about…

How would you answer Jesus’ question?

Look again at the sculpture of the crucifixion scene.  What does it have to do with what you want Jesus to do for you?

nk

 

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

Hello! I want to let you all know that I am beginning a daily post here on my blog for the season of Lent this year.  We will begin this Wed., Feb. 10, and continue Monday through Friday each week until we get to Holy Week. Then there will be a post everyday through Easter on March 27.

If you are already a follower you will automatically receive an email notice of every post.  If you wish to become a follower for this season just click on “FOLLOW” on the right column of the blog and you will begin to receive a notice as each new post occurs on the blog.  Otherwise just enter the blog each day as you wish.  Please share this with your friends who might want to join in this journey of Lent as a daily devotion together by following the blog.  The focus will be “Jesus and the Question”. You will be amazed at how often Jesus taught by asking a question.  These questions will deepen our understanding and our relationship with Christ as we realize who He is and how we might grow in Love.

There may be something you are giving up for Lent, but this may be something you want to “take on” for Lent as you and I seek to deepen our relationship with Jesus.  We will start this Wednesday and I look forward to being with you in our journey of faith together!

nk