Storms and Lent

 

As we move from darkness towards light, I keep thinking of how slowly this transformation actually evolves each year. And yet, within that slow receiving of light, there are some not so gentle letting-go-events like snowstorms or daily-event-storms happening within and around us. Those unpredictable events can either invite creative light to shine on our life priorities or they can be lamented as nature’s predictable patterns of disruption. 

Lent gives us an invitation to release predictably patterned-space and thereby create new openness to God-space. Everyone’s space-making is remarkably unique. Yet each time we choose to release life patterns of clutteredness, noise or inattentiveness to others, we automatically open spaces to receive again the love of God that awaits us. We get to embody trust in our God.

Storms, which scramble and rearrange daily priorities, can also birth in us a newfound landscape of harmony with our God.  Alfred Bracken says, “Harmony requires the wildness –the unpredictability of nature, to be linked to the wild self-giving love of God”. Unshackled by storms, let us stand before God in our unpredictable human nature and pray, “Let us come to know you God, whose coming is as sure as the dawn”.

Mary Rachel Kuebelbeck, OSB

Photo, by Karen Streveler, OSB, shows a winter snowfall at the monastery