The Creator rested on the seventh day; contemplating creation, God knew it to be good. When we keep the sabbath, we are invited, among other things, to contemplate our works of the preceding days. We may ask ourselves, “What have I done? What have I left undone?” If I am to grow in harmony with my fellow beings, I know I must ask myself those questions over and over again. I must rest from my labors to make space in my mind to frame the questions.
Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness, the desert. What is the desert but a space physically empty of the food and comforts and companionship, so near at hand in the inhabited places of the earth? In that vast physical wilderness, I see a metaphor of psychic empty space, a mindful space uncrowded by the pressing concerns of the day and society, a necessary open space for The Word to enter in. In the vastness of the desert, Jesus answered questions put to him by the tempter, such as, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Forgoing something precious to me for 40 days creates an opening in my personal time and space to contemplate large questions.
Lent I can see in one way as the sabbath writ large, one a metaphor for the other, each an essential time and space to be open, to be quiet and to listen for the eternal calling of The Word.
—Ed Flinchem
