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View this email in your browser A daily Lenten e-mail with lessons of hope and courage, inspired by a variety of resources to encourage us in these confusing and turbulent times from St. Luke’s Church, Lebanon. Monday - First Week in Lent It can be so easy in life to get turned around and flipped upside down such that we lose our way.  Lent is that wonderful time when we permit ourselves to acknowledge just how lost we are.  While ashes from last Wednesday may have days ago disappeared, that haunting phrase “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return” may still ring in our ears. It reminds us where we came from – and where we’re going in the end.  It’s no wonder we suffer from a form of spiritual amnesia when as we live in “the in-between.” St. Ignatius of Loyola teaches us that life is full of distractions and what he called “disordered attachments”. These keep us from experiencing the presence of God in its fulness. Lent is the time for us to put things in order – clean out the closet, as it were, discarding all the things (physical and spiritual to which we have become attached in a less than healthy way. Everything we hold is not bad. Holding onto it too tightly is what causes us the problem. Only when we begin to realize the impermanence of things and the necessity to deepen our life in the spirit can we begin once more to launch our in the right direction. Holy Scripture assures us that we have an abiding guide – a compass to point us in the right direction. That compass is Jesus. No matter how far we stray or off course, Jesus is that “breadcrumb” that guides us home into the very heart of God. Let’s be honest (and gentle) with ourselves.  Lent lands us amid the tattered mess of a pandemic that has taken so much from us as a human family. Making additional sacrifices right now might feel like more than we can bear. Like Jesus, we find ourselves having encounters in desolate places with darkness in all its forms.  “Wild beasts” torment and taunt us in the form of sickness and death, fear and doubt, abuses of power and unearned privilege, and tribalism that threatens to fracture our human family. To find our way, we need to turn – to turn toward Jesus. He will lead us safely home. Scripture Lessons appointed for the day (Click on the lesson for the text) Leviticus 19:1–2,11–18 Matthew 25:31–46 Psalm 19:7–14 Finding the way . . . When was the last time you felt "adrift"? Was there an event or a person who help to get you back on track? How might you be able to help someone else who needs guidance? Did you ever feel that God was involved in your personal life journey? My Shepherd Will Supply My Need Washington National Cathedral Cathedral Choir                                                                       Feeling adrift is an invitation to come home to yourself and to your heart. And Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life" Copyright © *|CURRENT_YEAR|* *|LIST:COMPANY|*, All rights reserved. *|IFNOT:ARCHIVE_PAGE|* *|LIST:DESCRIPTION|* Our mailing address is: *|HTML:LIST_ADDRESS_HTML|* *|END:IF|* Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.