What is your wilderness?
Maybe it’s an unadorned trip to the natural world without technology or the creature comforts of civilization, a place of organic, if not raw beauty, in an experience of communing with the environment.
Or, maybe the term wilderness conjures up uncertainties of the future, perhaps incessant and taunting unknowns that pester one’s sense of security or identity (jobs, finances, relationships, achievements, material possessions, etc.).
Still, some might equate the word wilderness with a wound or a brokenness that evokes reluctance to enter into the territory of what has been.
Or, perhaps wilderness connotes a sickness, loneliness, tragedy, or even shame as the fundamental hardship.
On a brighter note . . .
What if the wilderness were viewed as opportunity?
What if it was a crossing over into a holy place?
What if it was a sanctuary of space and time to draw closer to God?
What if it was a journey with the help of angels, if only to ask?
What if it was turning away from those things that dim the soul and turning toward the light of goodness, love, purity, and Heaven?
What if it was a time to be strengthened, not depleted, in the metanoia of opening one’s heart to God?
This is the season of Lent when followers of the historical and risen Jesus enter into forty days of preparation for Christ’s Resurrection at Easter. Everyone is welcome on this spiritual journey of hope, anticipation, and renewal.
The Gospels speak of the Spirit’s divine nudge prompting Christ into the desert where Satan and his dark powers failed miserably in tempting the ever faithful Lord. It is in this barren landscape where the wild animals of creation inhabited the land and Heaven’s angels ministered to and celebrated Jesus as he brimmed with the Holy Spirit despite his 40-day fast without food.
This is a season of hope, an invitation to attend to the longings of the human heart and soul with a return to the Creator. It’s a nudge to open one’s essence. To turn. To pray. To embrace.
Easter, with its grace of interior resurrection, is the radical healing of the human condition. Lent, which prepares us for this grace, is about what needs to be healed, [forgiven and celebrated].
— Thomas Keating, The Mystery of Christ
Sending hope and prayers for a blessed metanoia in the wilderness uniquely yours.
Thanks for stopping by. ♥