A Lenten Fast to Live By, Lent study 2024, week 2
Overview of Week 2
The psalmist has the audacity to ask God the question to which we all like to have answer: How long will I live, God? “Let me know my end, and the number of my days, so that I may know how short my life is” (psalm 39:5 in The Book of Common Prayer).
Will I outlive my money? Will my body fail me so that I can no longer care for myself? How long will I be able to live in my old, familiar house?
Is there enough to go around? Our culture too often likens our circumstances to a pie in which your taking a piece infringes on how much there is left for me. Our author calls it “scarcity anxiety” – the fear that there won’t be enough to sustain us.
We live in a culture that is slave to accomplishment, productivity and acquiring ever more material goods. And we are exhausted. We eschew what Christine Valters Paintner says is our birthright – rest. But when we do claim a bit of rest – even just closing our eyes for ten minutes – we “are living into the abundance that exists and rejecting the false and brutalizing system of exhaustion that we live under” (pg 116).
Paintner calls us instead to a practice of sabbath. “When we practice sabbath,” says Paintner, “we are making a visible statement that our lives are not defined by this perpetual anxiety” (pg 117). She reminds us that “At the heart of this relationship is a God who celebrates the gift of rest and abundance.”
What’s more, this gift of rest and abundance is not for some far-off heaven where we will be someday; it is for now. Thomas Merton wrote, “Paradise is all around us and we do not understand” (pg 117). Theologian Makoto Fujimura adds that we need not be merely creatures of survival, but celebrate and live into “the exuberant abundance of Creation and New Creation” (pg 118).
As Paintner says, “Sabbath-keeping is an embodiment of our faith that there is something deeper at work in the world than the machinations of the power structures.” We have the opportunity to participate in the revolution.
Questions for reflection
For what are you most anxious about? Money? Health? Loneliness? How can you focus on abundance instead?
When you sense anxiety rising in you, what kind of rest will help? Paintner mentions time in nature, silence, a meal with a friend, a long walk in a beautiful place, taking a nap.
Practices this week
A way to focus on and deepen trust in God’s abundance would be to begin or continue to write a Gratitude Journal, listing several things each day for which you are thankful.
Each week on Day 7, Paintner suggests creating and adding to a personal altar or prayer space. If you have not done this, we suggest you consider doing so and adding to it each week with symbols that have meaning for you. More information on creating the altar is on page 83 of the book.
The Wisdom Years 