Lenten Reflections

So I gave up listening to music when I have control of the sound system for Lent. What that basically means, is no leisure music around the house, in the car, when studying in the library, etc etc. Not quite as drastic as one of my former plans to try giving up playing guitar for Lent one year … that would have been bad.

What this results in is lots and lots of time to sit silently and think. Which can be both a good and bad thing. For the first week I just tried to entertain myself by putzing around on the internet watching movies on youtube, or playing small flash games online; neither of which is all that productive.

The tricky part has been the car drives. Even with music car drives have always been a time to just sit and muse about life, insanity, and solving the world’s problems. With about two weeks left, and finals looming on the horizon God has directed my attention to the darker parts of life. Not only in some of the class material we are discussing, but also in how real life has been manifesting itself. I have found myself dealing with very troubling life issues to which I have wanted to step away from, and it probably would have been the easier. In turn God guided me to preach a sermon on the topic of endurance and perseverance. I found it funny too.

For all these crazy things that have been going on it has been directed to getting to Good Friday. I have found that there are deep seeded understandings of Good Friday, and that while everyone likes it most of the time it seems to be a very personal experience. As planning has taken place some very beautiful gems have come out of the woodwork that have been put out on the alter of encountering the darkness that surrounds the day of the cross. Not so much that the day of the cross is dark to us, but rather that we often take part in Maundy Thursday and the Last Supper, and then skip right over to Easter without so much as a second glance at the importance of Good Friday. No disrespect intended, but we kinda have to kill Christ in order for him to raise himself back up. Can’t raise the living to life.

So in these moments of quiet and reflecting on God during the times of silence I have found more comfort with the darkness in my life. Granted I try to visit the darkness in my life. This is not to say that I go out and purposefully try to do bad things, but I take time to reflect on my actions and asking if they are in line with God’s Kingdom. These are also times where I normally visit the worst case of a scenario, normally to go that far, get it out of my system and then come back to the land of the insane.

It will be weird to go back to the noise of music come Easter, but at the same time I think I will find myself reflecting in times of silence more often. Although I apparently have about 5 CD’s that I need to catch up on.