LENT: A TIME TO CLIMB A MOUNTAIN

Most of us live from day to day, one day looking very much like the next. This, I think, is true whether we are a child, a teenager, college student, employee or employer, or retired. Days go by faster and faster as we grow older and older. Tine flies whether we are having fun or simply plodding through each day. Before we know it, we are celebrating our next birthday or anniversary. We wonder where time goes anyway.

How we use the time given to us, and none of us knows how much time that is, is what is important. We can waste it or use it to improve our lives. It is always up to us. No one forces us to make the best use of our time. We can only do that for ourselves. And we only do it if we believe it will be helpful and beneficial to do so. Otherwise we will probably spend most of our time counting time.

That said, it is time to remind that Lenten Time is upon us. It is a time the church sets aside for us to take a deeper and personal look at our lives, both our material and our spiritual lives, both-and and not either-or, one or the other. They go hand in hand. If are bodies are out of sorts, so are our souls. And vise-versa. Lent is a time to look at our body and our soul.

To do so what we have to do is, if you will, climb a mountain to get away from it all, away from the distractions that consume our daily lives, needed distractions like work and study, but distractions nevertheless. In order to adequately look deep into our body and soul, we need to put aside everything else. And even when we are able to do that, it is still difficult to concentrate on the issue at hand: the health of our body and soul.

That is why I like the metaphor of the mountain. Moses had to climb a mountain to get away from the mess in the desert when the people were ready to hang him for bringing them out on what was becoming a godawful exodus march. He went up that mountain, reflected and prayed for forty days and came down with the Ten Commandments, or as I call them, Moses’ Rules for the Road. If the people followed those rules, they would make it to the end of their journey. They were good rules, but Moses needed to climb a mountain to be able to reflect on what he needed to do.

Jesus was always climbing mountains to get away from everyone and everything in order to reflect on his mission and ministry. He could not do that while engaged in it. He had to disengage, find a mountain, climb it, pray and reflect, then come down the mountain refreshed and ready to meet the days to come.

We are no different than Moses and Jesus. We need, on occasion, like Lent, to find a mountain, a space off by ourselves, to pray and reflect on the condition of our bodies and souls. That place can be anywhere we can find peace and quiet for ten or fifteen minutes each day. It may not be easy to find the time or space, but it would be good to do so.