In Rowan Williams' book Where God Happens: Discovering Christ in One Another, he says, "Sometimes when Christian writers have tried to explain what it meant for Satan to revolt against God and fall from heaven, they have suggested that Satan preferred the idea of an unreal world of which he was in charge to a real world in which all glory was due to God. It is not a bad definition of the essence of evil" (107). 

When I read that, I thought of something I had read by James Carse a few years ago. It comes from his book The Silence of God: Meditations on Prayer. "Speak to God from your heart. If you speak from your heart you will speak to God and you will ask nothing less than life. But we close our eyes against our hearts, and instead of asking for life we pursue our desires for a different life, thereby asking for something we cannot have - because such asking is contradictory and therefore not asking at all" (56). Being present to what is is more significant than I had once understood. 


So often I have spent myself trying to squirm away from the facts in my life. Recently I have tried to come to terms with the slow development of my spiritual direction practice. Sometimes I feel like I have retired, without ever having experienced a career, specifically the career I have only recently prepared for. This can feel disappointing. But then I thought, "Well, I learned a lot, feel much better and enjoy people so much more. How bad is that?" Not bad at all. When I look around, I see my life expanding comfortably. Knowing what I now know, feeling more like myself, and connecting more deeply with others is good enough.

I had thought of myself as one who does not pay enough attention to the church calendar. We are presently in the season of Lent. I have not given up chocolate, coffee, snacks or sleeping in. Nor have I added more scripture reading, prayer, or visiting of the sick.

This past week my friend, Roland, was driving me home after a committee meeting. I was telling him about the work I am doing as a storyteller in the Godly Play class at our church, St. Luke's Episcopal. I am memorizing a summary of the life of Jesus. In order to keep the passage fresh, I had refrained from watching a movie on Saturday night and from opening the newspaper Sunday morning, until after I had told the story.

Roland's immediate response was, "That's your Lenten observance!" I immediately knew it was so -- spending time learning those stories by heart during the week and fasting from entertainment on Saturday evening along with refraining from reading the newspaper until after church on Sunday is a special discipline. How helpful it is to have a spontaneous reflection of a friend!

Here is a glimpse into the story:

In the beginning the baby was born. God choose Mary to be the Mother of God. Listen carefully. Listen to the words. God choose Mary to be the Mother of God and the Word was born a wordless child.

As we tell the story to the children, we lay one image after the other on a purple cloth. For tomorrow's installment, I will repeat the first two segments and add two more. After each segment I wonder with the children whether or not they can see anything in our room that they could bring and put next to the image to show more of this part of the story. If they do, they are invited to get it and lay it beside the image we are talking about.

Tomorrow's segment ends like this:

Then it was as if Jesus could see all the kingdoms of the world. The voice returned, again. "If you will follow me, I will make you king over all of these kingdoms.

Jesus said, "No. I am to be a king; but not that kind of King."

Then the voice left.

Jesus went back across the River Jordan and began to do his work. But what was his work?