Ash Wednesday 2016 And Lenten Commitments

Each year, on Ash Wednesday millions of Christians around the world begin a pilgrimage of sorts. Ash Wednesday begins a period of intentional reflection and deeper identification with Jesus as individuals add disciplines or fast from certain foods or activities during the weeks leading up to Resurrection Sunday. For me personally, I have found Ash Wednesday and the Lenten season to be an incredible period for assessing where I am in my faith journey and for resetting or recalibrating my focus. It is so easy over the course of a year to become distracted or start a gradual or subtle slide into lethargy, complacency, or worse, and to lose sight of one's purpose or focus because of those urgent but often unimportant activities that can quickly swarm to drown out the voice of Jesus.

Today, I started Ash Wednesday in the way I have for many years, after a tradition instilled in me by my former chief. Although today was somewhat different because I did not actually make it to a gathering to receive ashes, I did carve out time in my early morning this morning, and my late evening last night to consider what I would be doing to grow in my faith and "journey with Jesus in the wilderness" during this season. Would I add to my devotional habits or practice self-denial in order to more fully connect and identify with Jesus during the weeks leading up to Easter?

Here is where I have landed. For the last eight years, I have walked through this book, Developing Intimacy With God by Alex Aronis. This book was suggested to me by a good friend of mine, JR Woodward, during the summer of 2008 as I was considering a potential shift in vocation. The book is an excellent framework for walking through the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. After reading Aronis' book for the first time in 2008, I have gone through it at least once a year--usually during Lent. And, I plan on doing the same this year--that's my Lenten commitment.

Why do the same thing? I have found this book to be an incredible gift, far beyond what I would have considered when JR suggested it a few years ago. It has been a gift because it has helped me to cultivate greater simplicity and generosity in my life, and it has helped me to grow in my relationship with God. Each time I come to the book, it encourages me toward an abiding in Christ, and rather than concerning myself with what I can do for Christ, the exercises encourage me to simply spend time with Christ. In a world that is growing increasingly distracted and "busy," taking this time to reset and refocus has been transformative, and in my opinion, could be one of the best things we do for spiritual health.

What about you? Do you have any Lenten traditions you have or commitments you are making this year as you take time to identify with Jesus during his wilderness fast and journey to the cross?

May each of us who participate in this ancient tradition grow in the depth of our love for God and neighbor, and may this growth spill over into action for the good of the world.

Reflection: Bonfires and Bonding

This year at our Nuru all-staff summit, we started a new tradition, or maybe we continued an older tradition in a new format. We gathered around a fire on the first night of our summit, and shared stories of ways in the past year different members of the team stepped forward and went above and beyond to carry the mission forward. This time of celebrating wins was not entirely new at Nuru, but, the bonfire was.

Sitting around that fire and enjoying some pizza and solid conversations and catch-up times with teammates as the sound of Pacific waves crashed in the darkness beyond us brought back several other memories for me. Back when I was more actively engaged in my tribal community, we would circle up around what we called "Indian-TV" or more specifically "Shawnee-TV" and conduct similar activities. We would enjoy meals, catch-up with one another, share stories, and laugh together as we enjoyed the dance of the fire/"TV" before us. My understanding is that our staff living in Ethiopia and Kenya also have fire pits around which they gather fairly often.

My tribe has a New Year's ceremony (not in January) in which the nation's fire is stamped out to signal the close of the old year and the start of the new year (there's much more to the ceremony, but this is one key element). As the fire is stamped out, individuals are encouraged to make amends, to forgive, and to leave the hurts of the previous year in the past. In this way each year starts with a clean slate.

I can remember heading out to one of my old roommate Lucas Harriman's family home in West Virginia during my undergraduate years too. We would gather about indoors, eat a ton of buckwheat cakes and pizza while simultaneously downing pot after pot of coffee, and then we would make our way outside to a fire pit, and gather around to sing praises to the Creator of the universe, share testimonies of what He was teaching us, and even take time to pray for one another.

I've always thought about a fire as a tool for survival, a place to keep warm, and a place to cook food and share meals, but in reality a fire represents a gathering place, and in some regard, the breath and life of a community. It's no wonder that people talk about relationships ending as "fires going out" or even of death in a similar fashion "their fire burnt out too early."

While I know that there are modern equivalents for gathering spaces, I can't help but think that a fire as a gathering space is unparalleled, especially a fire in the night. The fire calls us away from the darkness, calls us to warmth and laughter, and allows us to see one another more clearly rather than only seeing shadows.

Do you have any fireside memories? May we each make a practice of spending time together with others around a fire, and celebrate community, warmth, and connectedness.

Review: Developing Intimacy With God by Alex Aronis

As I have been attempting to write more reviews of books, one thing has come into crystalline focus. I have failed to review many of the books that have had the most profound effect on my life and personal views on a variety of subjects. One of those books is DevelopingIntimacy With God by Alex Aronis. I have mentioned this book in multiple posts, but have not shared much detail on the book itself.

It was initially recommended to me during the late spring of 2008 by my good friend JR Woodward. JR has been a long time friend and mentor of sorts for me, and in that frame, I was talking with him about a potential change of career I was considering. Two of my good friends had invited me to consider leaving vocational ministry to pursue a path toward fighting what I had come to believe is the greatest humanitarian crisis/challenge of our generation, global extreme poverty. It was against this backdrop that my friend JR recommended Aronis’ book as a devotional guide that could help me as I wrestled through this decision. The book helped me to make my decision, but it has done so much more.

Aronis’ book is the best book I have found for cultivating a deep and abiding relationship with Christ. It is my belief that for as much as Christians talk about having a “personal relationship with Jesus” this relationship seems more transactional than one of intimacy and depth. It’s not that people lack in intentionality (although that is sometimes the case), it is more that people don’t have good direction for cultivating this relationship beyond practices of a ‘quiet time’ or some form of prayer. And often this prayer time consists of little more than petitions and intercessions rather than dynamic conversation. It isn’t that petition and intercession are bad things, it is more that if any other relationship consists of only making requests and reading about an individual, we wouldn’t consider that a very healthy relationship.

In the book, Aronis observes that many people read scriptures looking for what they can ‘do’ for God without taking the time to be with Him and to become like him as precursors to this activity. He contrasts this with actual experience of the disciples. They spent roughly three years with Jesus, so that they could become more like Jesus in their character, and so that they could live for Jesus. In the introduction to the book, he mentions the late Bill Bright and Billy Graham as two examples of individuals who have realized amid their productivity, that if they had an opportunity to start over, they would have spent more time cultivating their own relationship with Jesus.

Beyond this observation, Aronis offers eight weeks of devotional exercises based on The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius as a means for individuals to grow in their ability to spend time with Christ without rushing ahead to do things for Christ (although he gets there too!).  This book was incredibly helpful for me as I was working to discern the best path forward in a variety of areas in my life. I have gone back to it as a near annual tradition since my friend JR introduced me to it, and I have recommended it to any and every person I have met who is looking to deepen their own relationship with Jesus and who is willing to take the time to walk through the book. Currently, I am walking through the book with a group of friends in the US as part of my Lenten commitment, and I just recently heard from a friend in the Netherlands who told me that the book was extremely formative for her and her friends, and that her fiancé is so impressed with it that he has written the publisher to see if it might be published in Dutch in the future.

I could write at length about the book (and perhaps that is why I haven’t written a review before now), but I will end this post simply by stating that if you are a Christian and you are looking for a book that can help you by offering a “how to” in terms of growing in your intimacy with Christ, than I highly recommend this book. Unfortunately, I have never seen a copy in any bookstore (even in Christian specialty stores), but I have been able to grab copies from Amazon. If you read it, I would love to hear the outcome of your eight week journey. 

Lenten Commitment 2012

This year, although I still made it to visit an early morning church service, I did not get to blog about my Lenten commitments, Ash Wednesday or any related subject. 

Each year, I approach lent in the spirit of taking an opportunity to gauge how I am growing in my relationship with God, and specifically, I look at lent as a time to re-commit, re-set, and re-engage with God and identify areas for growth. According to church tradition, people typically take this time to either give up something or add something to their life with the intention of being able to better focus on their relationship with God.

In the past, I’ve taken what some would consider some pretty radical steps of fasting or engaging in the discipline of simplicity. In the past I have also added dimensions to my devotional life in order to better know and connect with the Creator of the universe.

This year, I decided to walk through a devotional book, that may be the best devotional book I have ever read or used. It’s called Developing Intimacy With God and it’s by a guy named Alex Aronis. In the past, I had noticed that Aronis suggests lent as a great time to engage in this eight week devotional, as the last week coincides well with a celebration during the week after Easter Sunday. 

The book has a simple cover and title, but I love the way it encourages me to think about my walk with God differently. Rather than focusing on all of the things I might be able to do for God, Aronis’ book encourages me to focus my energies on spending time with Christ so I can learn to be like Him in my actions and attitudes.

The last few weeks have been incredible with regard to slowing down from the busyness of life to listen, abide, and cultivate my relationship with Christ. I really love taking time to be intentional about meditating on the words and life of Jesus and praying that as I develop this habit, that I might learn to better love both God and my fellow human beings more deeply.

It has been a wonder-filled journey thus far, and I look forward to continuing it, not only throughout the Lenten season, but for the rest of my life.