Author: danefowlkes

Scripture Reading: Matthew 26:17-35

Meditation:
Taking Lent seriously leads me to think about communion. I’ve participated in Lord’s Supper services since I was a child, but these were pushed quietly to the periphery and conducted more or less with an apologetic air about them. Church leaders that I admired (and still do) went to great lengths to stress the symbolic nature of the saltines and Welch’s; we did not call it holy communion or the Eucharist because such vocabulary smacked of Catholicism. None of that transubstantiation or consubstantiation business for us, thank you very much. For two years now I’ve approached the Lord’s table from a different persuasion, and have done so with greater frequency than I’ve been accustomed most of my life. At first I thought familiarity would breed contempt, but have since learned to love coming regularly to an open table that invites rather than excludes; one that does not flinch when beckoning communicants to encounter Christ and one another in the process.

It happens from time to time that, following our simple eucharistic celebration, someone says to me that it has been a very pleasing experience. When asked what part of the celebration moved them, the answer is often circumspect and comes out something like, “I love it when we come together like this; I belong, and what is happening is very real to me.” Such a subjective statement would have made me cringe in earlier days of pastoral ministry, but these days I understand that what touches people most deeply is the very raison d’être of corporate worship–the encounter that takes place between people and God at the very moment they come together. Call it intersection, or even incarnation; hungering hearts collide with one another and grasp the Cross to steady themselves. Crucifixion is a shared experience. As soon as we try to pin God down in an effort to keep him for ourselves–in other words, as soon as we claim God as our own possession–then life itself is threatened, especially the lives of the weak and wounded. God happens to us as we open our hearts to one another.

Scripture Reading:
Psalm 8

Meditation:
I’m not one for having a fuss made over me, but must admit that I’ve enjoyed the good job my church has done of recognizing my birthday. Just this morning the children’s Sunday School class sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me–twice. Afterward, one of the young boys asked, “Sir, how long have you been alive?” That is a great question for Lent, and if honest enough to see it through, the answer may surprise us. An Irish monk was once asked: “When do people receive their souls?” Or to put it another way: “When do we really become human?” The monk replied: “As soon as people can say: ‘I could have done that differently’ and ‘More could be said about that’, and ultimately “I forgive you.’ When people are fully conscious of these moments and actually express something of them in their daily lives, then they have clearly received their souls.” The Irish monk’s comment is especially sage for would-be disciples because people who are able to receive criticism and accept advice are the very ones able to break through the isolation with which others insulate themselves.

Lent nudges us to become truly human. We are just that when we accept that our particular way of speaking or acting is not the only way or even the best way; true humanity reveals itself when we become open to change. Whatever we might say about ourselves or the lives of others, there is always something more that could be said. What we’re after as disciples of Jesus of Nazareth is not escape but discovery, and while discovery may be momentarily self-centered, it should never be self-absorbed. We reflect and pray and consider what we could and should be, so that in so doing we prod someone else toward being truly human.

Scripture Reading:
Philippians 2:1-11

Meditation:
My wife is eminently practical, which comes in handy if you’re prone to hanging out in the realm of the abstract, as I am. One of her great merits is her uncanny knack for getting to the point, usually while I’m taking the long way around. If it doesn’t work, she doesn’t want it. If it doesn’t produce, what’s the use? That is a good mindset to bring to bear on this matter of the crucified life. Dying to self is no more mystical than shaving in the morning. The positive implications are endless.

Take, for example, the simple statement from the Apostle Paul in Philippians 2:4, “Look not only to your own interests… Consider others better than yourselves.” I can barely pull myself from survival mode long enough to acknowledge someone else, much less prefer their interests to my own. And when I attempt to do so, my words ring tinny and hollow, and even a bat could see that I’m saying things disconnected from my heart. Is St. Paul encouraging us to paint the clown’s face and pantomime love? Are we to fake it with the hope that we’ll eventually deceive ourselves into accepting our pasty makeup as our real face? I’m convinced the aged apostle has something much more authentic in mind. He does not encourage low self-esteem, but no-self-esteem. When I begin to recognize and genuinely believe that what others need and want is as important as my own needs and wants, they become more important than my own and I have traveled a long way down the road of actually losing sight of myself.

Scripture Reading:
Romans 3:9-20

Meditation:
I imposed ashes yesterday morning at sunrise in the church parking lot, and it was cold. The temperature was 28 degrees Fahrenheit but felt like 23, so I wore a dark felt fedora, black ski gloves, doctoral robe over a sweater, topped off with a purple satin stole. I resembled a cross between Dragnet and Sister Act. It was billed as ‘drive through ashes’, the most appealing aspect of it being that the recipient may remain in her or his heated vehicle, if she or he chooses to do so. Whether seated in comfort or standing in the elements, the result is the same–each is challenged to take Lent seriously and themselves even more so. An ashen cross imposed on the forehead reminds that from dust we have come and to dust we will return, repent and believe the Gospel.

I left the parking lot and moved to Oakwood Cemetery off La Salle Avenue, where I officiated the graveside service of the mother of a friend from college. I have delivered more funeral messages than I care to count over the past thirty five years, but this time I experienced a first. The sons requested that the casket be lowered with family and friends present, and that each be given the opportunity of shoveling dirt into the hole. Cemetery workers went about their task with as much dignity as they could muster, but the ratcheting sound was unnerving. When casket was six feet under the surface, the widower dumped the first shovel full of dirt. The sound of dirt striking a metal coffin echoed in the hole, and although I never knew the deceased I became emotional and fought back tears. From ashes on foreheads to dirt on a casket, the finality of it all struck something deep.

Every believer is called to die, but we shouldn’t wait until we’re six feet under to experience it. The old divines called it mortification of the flesh; Scripture calls it being crucified with Christ. Lent is both a blessed and awful time of seeing ourselves in the reflection of the Cross. We see him as he is, and see ourselves for who we are–wretched, pitiable, miserable sinners undeserving of mercy in any degree. Before anything rises, it must first fall; we will never understand Easter until we first cling to the Cross.

Scripture Reading:
Psalm 51

Meditation:
What good are ashes? Peculiar at best is this imposition of mealy black crosses on foreheads in the name of penitence. Taken at face value (pun intended), this may be one of the oddest expressions of Christianity extant, ranking up there with white smoke signaling another pontiff elected. Again I ask, what good are ashes in a world that condones war, winks at poverty, denies slavery, allows ignorance, and fosters fear? It would seem that we have more important matters with which to occupy our churches, but Lenten ashes have stood the test of time because of their powerful visual contrast to our culture’s obsession with more, more of everything, more of anything. Ashes remind that brokenness is the prerequisite to anything of spiritual value. I turn to Christ during Lent because I remember what it’s like to be me. In brokenness I find healing and in grieving I am qualified to rejoice. Pablo Neruda, that magnificent poet of Chile in the twentieth century, wrote: “Let us uncork all our bottled up happiness.” On Ash Wednesday we begin to remember where we put it. Happiness is hiding behind each splintered relationship, crouching just there in distended shadows of the towering twins regret and remorse. As we identify the origins of our pain and contemplate the consequences of our rebellion against the Grace-maker, forgiveness comes in waves. Small consolations followed by expanding relief and, ultimately, a crescendo of restoration.

“The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.”
~Madeleine L’Engle

My theological education began on the back porch of my grandmother’s home in Nederland, Texas. Grandma Richey spoiled me with sugar butter sandwiches and soda in colorful metal cups that were so cold they stung my teeth. We would pad our way barefoot across the wood floor that at times offered up splinters, past the ringer washing machine that always frightened me for some unknown reason, and settle in for an evening picnic with sandwiches and soda. Grandma resembled the grey oak slats of the floor–narrow, rough, resilient, but you could glimpse the spunk in her eyes and she had much to say when it was just the two of us sitting behind screened-in shadows to the sound of bobwhites in the backyard. I asked more questions those days than I can recall, but what I do remember is how Grandma Richey gently guided me to a great God who loved me, and that the questions she could not or would not answer did not end in fear. Grandma’s God was larger than my questions. How I loved them both, and still do.

I’m uncertain if I ask more questions as I’m bending to my final trimester of years, or if I’m simply more honest and willing to admit the questions I haven’t had the courage to consider since I was a boy. Doing so exposes to prospects of far deeper learning, at least I hope so. As the white pearl said to King Rinkitink of Oz: “Never question the truth of what you fail to understand, for the world is filled with wonders.” Not all questions have answers, but it would be a shame not to ask. I’ve been swimming upstream in a river of darkness much of my life, but on my grandmother’s back porch I learned to trust what I could not explain.

“In many cultures there is an ancient custom of giving a tenth of each year’s income to some holy use. For Christians, to observe the forty days of Lent is do the same thing with roughly a tenth of each year’s days. After being baptized by John in the river Jordan, Jesus went off alone into the wilderness where he spent forty days asking himself the question what it meant to be Jesus. During Lent, Christians are supposed to ask one way or another what it means to be themselves.”
~ Frederick Buechner

I grew up in a denomination that placed Lent in the category of icons and confessionals. In a word, it was “Catholic”, and every associated practice was considered suspect. As a result, I never understood the reason folks accepted a smudge on their forehead each year on Ash Wednesday or why they would speak of what they were giving up for Lent. Only after reading and teaching from the great devotional writers in Christian history did I discover the rich heritage and great logic of annually exposing one’s self to rigorous self examination and righteous self denial. Preaching these days in a different denominational tradition–one that embraces the liturgical calendar, I find that more than any other benefit, Lent paves the way for deeper identification with the Cross and higher exultation in the Resurrection; Easter dazzles the mind and heart with hope following roughly 40 days of darkness and despair.

Beginning on Ash Wednesday, I will share Scripture and meditations designed to foster the paschal rhythm of the Christian life. I make no promises that the path we’ll choose will be an easy one as we climb together to the Place of the Skull and view past, present, and future from the Cross; however, identifying as best we can with the crucified Savior and resurrected Lord, we may come upon ourselves along the way.

“To put the matter in one metaphor, the sexes are two stubborn pieces of iron; if they are to be welded together, it must be while they are red-hot. Every woman has to find out that her husband is a selfish beast, because every man is a selfish beast by the standard of a woman. But let her find out the beast while they are both still in the story of ‘Beauty and the Beast'” ~~ G. K. Chesterton

Valentine’s Day is not a holiday to observe, but a sequence to savor. It is one moment to push pause among other quite ordinary moments, and really see the other, and in the seeing learn something that changes yourself. Knowing that my wife is not fond of crowds and cliches, I arranged a private celebration for two days before the actual holiday in order to express my appreciation of the woman that she always has been and the wife she chooses to be. I have a friend who owns a retreat center on the northern edge of the Texas hill country, and gained his permission to drive my wife to a high place and give her a view as her Valentine’s gift. I packed the Jeep with everything we’d need: vintage picnic basket filled with appetizers and beverages, blanket for the anticipated chill, binoculars for wildlife viewing, and a gift bag containing something she mentioned weeks ago she would like. We drove just over thirty minutes from Waco, turned left on FM 182, then entered through the gate and climbed up the gravel path that winds steeply around and up one of three tall hills in the area. We stopped atop the highest point in Bosque County with a panoramic view that included a magenta sunset just over our right shoulders. Deer that looked like miniature figurines crisscrossed farmland down below and Kestrels flew like sentinels near our perch. Unrehearsed and uncomplicated, it was a great way to pay tribute to her and us.

A war is raging in this country over the meaning of love and marriage. While our nation struggles to define it, I rejoice over the honor of being husband to the most wonderful woman in the world. To be honest, I’ve not always been so positive about marriage in general, and confess that my wife has everything to do with my revised view of wedded bliss. Daily I’m humbled by our common life, and the uncommon love I receive from the tender woman who chooses to share her life with me. The fact that Jo Beth said “I do” all those years ago can only be chalked up to temporary insanity, but may the madness continue a lifetime and beyond. My wife and I are still in the story, and never want it to end. No doubt I caught my Valentine in a weak moment, but I’ll never let her go.