What's for Lent?

I wrote this a week ago and posted it on my other blog. Thought I would share it here . . . it has to do with the Christian practice of Lent that precedes Easter. It's a little wired . . . The sermon (A Line in The Sand) following this post is a little more standard and typical of my posts on this blog.

Flying Penguins and Ashes

I dreamt about a massive flock of flying penguins last night . . . Weird? I've been very much feeling mortality this week and it just happens to be Lenten season. I didn't do ashes this year . . . "Excuse me sir, you have a little something on your forehead."

I did a funeral today --A 21 year-old full of life, otherwise healthy and vibrant. Her memory will be my ashes this Lenten season.

This week started with feeling mortality. My ankles, legs, and joints have been doing their due-diligence to remind me that I'm mortal all week long. Feels like I've been out jogging with Prophet Nathan everyday.

Tuesday night I imagined being blind which led to imaging being deaf, and then I imagined being paraplegic. My eyes, more likely my brain, experienced a weird electric like impulse that blurred the center of my vision. Whatever I focused directly on was blurred by an electric-like flashing blue, green, white, and red stringy impulse. I couldn't focus on TV, the computer screen, or read.

So, laying down Tuesday night, I imagined being blind. If I live long enough I'll eventually go blind. What would it be like? I am thinking of preaching sometime about blindness, deafness, and disability. I will go blind one week. I'll wear something over my eyes and experience what I experience.

I was thinking of how odd it will be. Some people won't get it, they'll say: "What's wrong with his eyes . . . What kind of point is he trying to make . . . He's trying to draw attention to himself." Whatever happens, at least it will be a memorable sermon. How many truly memorable sermons have I ever heard and will I ever preach?

What point will I be making? I'll go blind for a week and preach blind on that particular Sunday at the end of my week experience. Then I'll do a week deaf and then a week in a wheel chair.

I was trying to think of a convenient time to do this, like going blind or being blind would ever be convenient. Ashes are an interruption. One day we wear them on our forehead and wash them off in the morning. One day our ashes will take on a more long-term effect.

The point of ashes is . . . The point of preaching blind and deaf will be that we are all only temporary able. We are all turning to ashes and falling down.

Then I got a call Thursday to do the funeral of a 21 year-old. Transference is a hard thing to guard against in the ministry. In the end, I am invited to bear wittiness and become a part of grieving families' rawest of moments. But I am there only as a witness and helper, kind of like a midwife of sorts.

I deal with other's ashes as a minister. I am becoming ashes, myself. That flock of penguins landed and rolled and slid on their bellies and made noises. I dreamt of flying penguins and dreamt of dying. So I will live and contemplate flying penguins and becoming ashes this Lenten season.