Prayers and Poems for Lent

Program Manager at The New Leaf Network

Few things excite me more than imagining what could be. The act of participating in the life of God, pushing reality towards the picture that Jesus paints of His kingdom becoming tangible here; that kind of energy always gets me animated. Even when my hands aren't trying to make new things possible, my mind is often twisting and turning, trying to put all the pieces together of how this Kingdom is unfolding amongst us here and now. Without even realizing it, I often fall prey to the posture of productivity, imagining and finding all the ways I can be used as an agent for change, that I often forget that Jesus also calls me to simply be. Being present to Him as He is also present to me, with no agenda other than connection.

Every year I try to give up something for lent, one year it was meat, another it was Sour Cream and Onion Ruffles (this was no small feat dear reader). But the past few years, I've tried to be mindful at Lent of giving up the extra producing, slowing down my pace of life, actually turning off my researching and reading mind to make more space to simply be. By far, this kind of "giving up" continues to be the most difficult for me - I'm far more inclined to tell others to rest, while I continue to press on.

The last few months, I've been praying along with the liturgies penned by Cole Arthur Riley, a gifted writer and the Content and Spiritual Formation Manager in the Christian Studies Department at Cornell University. One of her recent liturgies so beautifully reminded me of the importance of being with God during Lent, finding courageous rest and the privilege it is to slow down.

Join me in this prayer today, in this season of Lent, remembering that even though there is much work to be done, there are also riverbanks, quiet corners of the house, lilies of the field, and words of scripture calling for us to simply be with our God.

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