Thursday February 11

OK, after saying I won’t write every day, what can you do when the readings are so rich?

Jesus says, “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.  What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?” (Matthew 9:24-25).  

What indeed.  This is precisely where I’ve been standing.  Jesus calls me, calls us, to the real life of our selves, but my ego, my personality, can only hear the threat to its supremacy.  From its perspective, it looks like death.  But from the perspective of the self, the whole person, this is the path of life.  As one of you wrote back, this is a matter of being afraid but doing it anyway.  We can’t not be afraid, but we can choose not to let the fear determine our course.

I’ve been working a lot on what blocks me from that deeper life, that deeper awareness.  So I’m on the road.  I don’t get to control the outcome, how transformation occurs, but I can at least try to learn something new, to “deny my self” in favor of my Self.

What does your ego whisper to you as you begin the Lenten journey?  What does it tell you you can’t do without?  Don’t listen; it’s lying.  Ask instead what behavior you are being invited to let go of, and what to adopt.  And then watch and see who you become.