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Last night Pat McLean was killed crossing Gulf Boulevard in St. Pete Beach. Pat was a friend of our son, Malcolm. They were on a recreation soccer team together years ago and both went to St. Petersburg High School. They were seniors. Malcolm saw Pat at school Friday and then he woke up then next morning to a message that Pat had been killed. Of course, this is heart breaking for Pat’s family and loved ones and friends.

Tragedies like this happen in the course of life. It is awful for those involved. And an abrupt death is usually much harder on the family and friends than a lingering death. There is no time for good byes, for resolving unfinished business, for making amends. Again, not so much a problem for those who die, but perhaps very difficult for those left behind.

The Lenten season as we devote ourselves to spiritual growth, we can think about how we are living our lives, conducting our relationships, and taking care of things. The saying reminds us, Live each day as if it were your last. While that may sound morbid to some, it is really a concept filled with love.

If you live each day as your last, you will apologize where needed and contribute to needed reconciliation. Then hurt feelings are not left behind. Loved ones are not left with unresolved issues. What a gift to those you care about. If you live each day as your last, you will be more judicious about what you get upset about thinking: “This is my last day on earth, do I really want to make an issue out of this? Does this really matter that much?” Again, that thoughtfulness could truly mean a lot to those you love. If you think of this day as your last, you will want to take advantage of the opportunity to express love and gratitude to those who are important to you. There are also the practicalities. Are your “affairs” in order? Finances? End of life wishes? Death and burial plans? Wills? Things well organized and easily accessible such as insurance policies, banking statements, and other legal documents? This is another important way we can show love to our families and friends. It will make things so much easier for them especially if they are stunned by grief.

We can also think about what we love and what has meaning for us. Do we spend our days, our time, and our money, in ways that reflect what is important to us and what we care about? If this turned out to be your last day on this earth, would you still chose to spend it watching old episodes of Full House? Would you write that letter to a friend? Would you do a crossword puzzle? Would you go out to lunch with your pastor? Would you plant that tree? Would you clean the bathroom? Would you finish that painting? Maybe. Maybe not. But I think that we want to invest our lives in what truly has meaning for us. That is a legacy worth leaving our loved ones.

Thinking about each day as our last is a way to frame living out love for our families, for friends, and for the world. It’s a way to think about what really matters. It is a way to cherish each day as the gift and treasure that it is. It is a way to encourage the light of Christ to shine through us out into the world while we are here in the world.

Prayer: So often we get caught up in things that don’t really matter. We may postpone doing what we know we should be doing to take care of ourselves, our relationships, and the world. We may focus our attention and our energy on things which don’t really matter. Out of love for those we care about and out of gratitude for the gift of this precious life, we pray for the grace to live each and every day to its fullest. Jesus never let an opportunity pass by to do what is good and right and true. May we let him guide us. Amen.

Roundup is a toxic weed killer. It is touted because to use it, you spray the top of the plant, and the plant is killed down to the roots. The plant spreads the toxins through its system and the whole thing dies.

While I am explaining the workings of Roundup, I am not promoting its use. Those toxins are then in the air, on the ground, and in the earth which can have other damaging effects. I try to avoid using Roundup if at all possible.

But there is the issue of toxins. We are told that toxins build up in our bodies; throughout our flesh and blood and tissue. Evidently, we need to get rid of those toxins to be healthy. The toxins come from the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat as well as other sources. We may even be taking in the toxin Roundup someway somehow! If it kills a plant, it certainly cannot be good for us.

A health practitioner was talking with me recently about toxins and the need to rid the body of toxins. Articles in magazines, newsletters, and on websites talk about cleansing the body of toxins. All things considered, I am a very healthy eater. I am vegetarian. I try to limit my consumption of eggs and dairy. I seldom consume processed food. I buy fruits and vegetables and tofu, and I try to buy organic much of the time. I do a lot of cooking involving a lot of chopping even to the point of getting tendonitis! So I can’t say that I am taking in a lot of toxins through my food. Through air and water, some, perhaps, but not much.

So does that mean I am clean, pure, unpolluted? Hardly. In the gospels we are told that Jesus said it is not what goes into the body that pollutes it but what comes out of the body that pollutes it. Well, there I have plenty of impurities; things I have said and done that are far less than pure and unselfish. Things that are hurtful. Attitudes that are damaging to others and myself.

Lent is a time for us to round up our toxins and purify, cleanse, and evict them. It is a time to forgive ourselves and others for toxic behavior in the past. It is a time to clean the slate, so to speak. This is a time to let go of what is holding us back, including regrets and past failures and mistakes. We cannot rewrite the past, but we can construct a new future. In this Lenten season, may we detoxify of what truly defiles us.

Prayer: We pray for a pure heart. A heart ready, willing, and open to be filled with Divine Love and that alone. May we have the courage to clean out the toxins from our hearts and our lives so that God’s love may live in us, bring us health and wholeness, and through us, bless the world. Amen.

Who knew that a python could find its way home? Experiments done with Burmese pythons in the Everglades have provided evidence that when a python is removed from its home territory it returns. Apparently one snake traveled 22 miles over the course of 9 months to return to where it was captured. [See the Tampa Bay Times, “Pythons’ homing skills leave scientists amazed” by Craig Pittman, March 19, 2014]

There are other animals that also make heroic journeys to return “home.” Salmon traverse the river of their birth upstream to lay eggs. Sea turtles swim hundreds of miles to return to the beaches of their birth to lay their eggs. Monarch butterflies make incredible journeys as do many birds in their migration patterns. Many animal species have this instinctual ability to return home.

In this Lenten season, we are thinking about growing closer to God and about growing in our spiritual journey. The stories in our scriptures tell us that we come from God. Our tradition also teaches that we return to God. So our pilgrimage in this life is really one of returning to God; making our way back to God. This is much like other animal species. Though our journey may not be geographical, yet, we, too, are returning home.

Unlike the python or the monarch butterfly, we do not have pure instinct to guide us on a direct path. Our spiritual journey back to God may take many twists and turns. We may very well get waylaid. We may take detours. Maybe many detours. And while we are in the midst of sorting out our way to back to God, God may very well find us, even if we did not know we were wandering! In the end, we all make our way home to God because there is no escaping the infinite scope of divine love.

This Lenten season is a good opportunity to take some time to reflect on where you are in your journey. How are you making your way back to God?

Prayer: We are grateful that we come from Love and return to Love. In between, we make our spiritual pilgrimage on this earth. We give thanks for the journey and all that we learn along the way. There are many who offer us help along the way. That is a blessing. May we trust love as our “homing” signal and seek to turn our lives ever more surely to the path of love. Jesus came from God and returned to God. May he be our guide. Amen.

This year March 20 marks the first day of Spring. A couple of weeks ago on “Prairie Home Companion,” Garrison Keillor was extolling that spring had finally come to Minnesota. Temperatures were no longer below zero. It was up in the 30’s. Everyone was giddy with delight. Having lived in Minnesota for 7 years, I can attest to the radical transformation that happens to the earth in such an extreme northern clime. It truly is magical and miraculous. People are practically drunk with elation at the greening of springtime.

Here in Florida the transition from winter to spring is not nearly as extreme. We have certain natural markers of the spring season like oak pollen. Has your car been covered with that yellow dust? And the light changes. But the transition here is subtle compared with “up north.”

The coming of spring is significant in many religious traditions ancient and modern. Humankind has seen divine revelation in the transformation of the earth from the dead, barren, gray-brown of winter to the riot of color and profusion of life that erupts in the springtime. Spring is a reminder of the radical newness and potential for transformation that is inherent in life. Throughout the centuries, Christians have seen the spring as a symbol of new life in Christ, of forgiveness, grace, and transformation.
The stunning conversion of the earth in the spring inspires wonderful images of God’s amazing, life giving power.

Here in the balmy south, we don’t experience the radical re-awakening of the earth. We don’t witness the drastic visual transformation from blanketed white to a palette of blue, green, lilac, pink, red, and yellow. It’s like going from a black and white TV to a color TV those few weeks when everything thaws and buds and blooms. The drastic change in the earth fuels dreams of radical growth; physical, spiritual, emotional, social, and intellectual. Could it be that our more subtle change of season leads to lower expectations for transformation and change and growth? Could our gradual, more subdued seasonal transition lead to more complacency, less promise of radical change?

To step up our hopes and dreams for a new world, to inspire our faith in the incredible power of Divine Love, maybe we, here in this mild climate, need to go out of our way to surround ourselves with reminders of all things spring. We can read poetry about springtime and view images of spring and take delight in flowers and greenery. Lent, though a stark time of introspection, is also a time let our hopes and dreams and expectations soar. It is a time to remind ourselves of all that is promised and delivered by God.

Prayer: We give thanks for this season of spring and its many meanings and associations. May this season of new life inspire new life in us. May this be a season in which we burst forth with new growth that brings life and beauty to the world. Amen.

My husband’s cousin announced on Facebook that she is doing some kind of 40 bags in 40 days de-cluttering program for Lent. The program she refers to is really more about spring cleaning than about Lent or religion. And, actually, spring cleaning has been part of Lenten discipline in some corners of the church. This involves the association between ridding your house of dirt and cobwebs, etc. and ridding your spirit of evil and sin.

In thinking about the 40 bags of clutter, I thought about how we are told that Jesus went into the wilderness for 40 days with little more than the clothes on his back. In fact, he never owned much more than that. There is freedom in that kind of material simplicity. Travel experts talk about heading to Europe for 2 weeks with 8 garments. It makes things easy to be so unburdened. But why consider this just for a trip? Why not think about living like this all of the time? Less to take care of. Less to tie us down. More time and energy to spend time with friends and family and contributing to the community. As someone who dreads putting the laundry away because the clothes won’t all fit in the drawer, this kind of simplicity has an appeal.

And while we are thinking about “traveling light” what about the burdens that we carry internally? The hostilities, regrets, broken dreams, hurt feelings, grievances, and so many other things, that weigh us down spiritually and emotionally. What freedom there can be in releasing that clutter! Jesus learns about this in the wilderness, too. How to stay focussed. How to release what holds us back from the freedom God is seeking to give us.

Hopefully in this Lenten season we can create some space in our lives by doing some de-cluttering – physically or spiritually or both!

Prayer: In the story of Mary and Martha, Jesus tells them that one thing is needful. Can it be true that we really only need one thing? May we accept God’s love to sustain us and help us to grow. May we trust that love to cast out the fear in our lives and everything else that holds us back from being filled with God’s love and light. May we accept the call to material simplicity as the gift that it is rather than as a sacrificial burden. “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” We pray for the will to let grace free us from all that fetters. Amen.