Meeting ID: 815 0755 1772
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Meditation I:
“I was raised Catholic, went to church every Sunday and Vacation Bible School each year, and didn’t fit in. I was frequently the only child of color in those very White spaces, and I felt more watched than welcomed at church. “Faith,” to me, meant discomfort, obligation, and shame for most of my early life.
My experiences as the single “other” granted me a unique perspective in a community of people taught to recite the same prayers in unison, to defer to the authority of the Church on everything from yoga to birth control, and to profess the same beliefs: theological, social, and political. From an early age, I took issue with the messages the Church sent to women and girls, about our diminished capacities to lead, about our bodies, and about our purposes, theological, social, and political. By the time I was a young teenager, I was a full-fledged feminist reading Alice Walker and Betty Friedan, and I brought feminist/womanist perspectives to church with me.
Lent … evoked not reverence but resentment in me.
Lent felt like another burden I didn’t choose. Giving up dessert or Gilmore Girls made me feel emptier. “Giving something up” felt like another rule which led to more guilt, not closeness to God.”. (Sarah James)
Christ in the Wilderness” Public Domain
Silent Meditation: If our spiritual practice makes us feel separated from God, community, and even ourselves, have we really entered a season of Lent?
“Today, I am no longer a member of the Catholic Church. Away from those tendrils of patriarchy and homogeneity, I see sacrifice during Lent differently - not as an obligation, but an invitation.”. (Sarah James)
What invitations are you being invited to listen deeply to this season?
How shall you respond?
What’s at stake for your life and community if you listen or ignore?
Meditation III:
During this season on a path of welcoming darkness and light, hope and longing, may we listen to the invitations to live more fully where a staid ineffectual sacrifice has been given up for an unwieldy love for those right beside us, noticing because we listened before words were ever spoken.
Closing Prayer:
Holy Loving one,
Beckon us into a life
Lived most fully when we
Notice you everywhere and in everything.
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