Lenten and Holy Week Meditations
We will be posting here and on our website at www.uuchristian.org a series of excerpts from "For Everything There Is A Season" by Wallace W. Robbins, 1910-1988, first published in 1978 and republished in 1987 by the UUCF. During this time from Ash Wednesday, through Lent, to Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter, we will be publishing excerpts from the Robbins meditation manual. The first is the following Ash Wednesday meditation, and next to come will be thirteen Lenten meditations, one each for Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday, two for Good Friday, three for Easter and one for Ascension Day. Below the meditation is a brief biography of Rev. Robbins.
We invite not only your reflections here, but also your contributions and links to meaningful sites for this part of the Christian Year. Thanks.
Ash Wednesday
"Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, comes upon this week, and the entire Western Church enters into a time of abstinence and meditation as contemporary Christians retrace the road of Jesus from the Mount of Transfiguration to the hill of execution.
"In an earlier time this vigil was for forty hours but it was finally extended to forty days. As the Sundays were excluded, they being always days of joyful worship, the beginning of Lent was set back to Wednesday to allow for the full forty days.
"It is noticeable that although changes have taken place in the rules governing the intensity of fasting and meditation and in the length of time from hours to days, the one consistency is in the number forty. Forty hours or forty days; it appears of lasting significance that it be forty. Probably this number was agreed upon to correspond with the number of days Jesus spent in the wilderness before he took up his destiny as the serving King. But these forty days had their prefiguration also: the days of the flood, the years of wandering in the wilderness, the days of Elijah's fast.
"Forty is a biblical symbol for temptation, a word considerably devalued in present currency to mean the allure of evil. We have come to think of that part of the Lord's Prayer as simply a plea that we be kept out of those situations which are occasions of sin. Typically, modern usage makes the situation of temptation an outward matter. Help man to be clear of outward conditions and you will have cleared his soul of inner turmoil.
"Prohibition dealt with alcoholic abuse in this outward fashion, but, because of the inner compulsions of the addicted and of those rebellious against all authority, the situation became worse.
"The biblical "forty" stands for a different understanding of temptation. It is the tension which one feels in his heart when he sees that victory lies ahead and that safety means turning back. He may wish that the conditions which have brought him to this trial of soul had never come to pass, but since they have, the testing is not in his ability to resolve the conflict but to endure it and, ever in fear, to press forward. The real victory is not to be measured by the success of the action, but by the inner success even in the face of outer defeat.
"Nomadic Israel in the wilderness for forty years was not victorius in any achievement except that of survival as a loyal people. Neither by outer attack or by inner dissension could the ultimate integrity of Israel be broken and that inner strength was all and sufficient."Jesus emerged from his personal journey in the wilderness confirmed in his Jewish vision of what constitutes passing the test, the cleared vision of man as built from the inside out and not made by the laws of state, the rituals of religion, the allurements of pomp and circumstance.
"To reflect upon this inner meaning of nations and of men is the business of Lent."
---Born in New Bedford, Mass., in 1910, and educated for the ministry at Tufts and Meadville, Wallace Woodsome Robbins served our movement in Alton, Illinois, Unity Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, as president of Meadville Theological School and as a professor in the Federated Theological Faculty at the University of Chicago, and as the long-time minister of the First Unitarian Church in Worcester, Mass. His mission, he often said, was "to make Christians more liberal and liberals more Christian."
posted by Ron @ 7:46 AM
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A few years ago on our UUCF-L email forum we posted the daily meditations from Frank O. Holmes' Unitarian Lenten manual, My Heart Leaps Up, first published in 1956.
I will try to post some more contemporary Lenten reflections in the days ahead, and encourage others to do the same. I love to republish the classics, even with the non-gender-inclusive language, but also like to publish what is coming from the current heart as well.
I am also thinking of rolling all of this over onto a new blog simply for these seasonal meditations.
Here is a quote I pulled out of our online archives that one UUCF member posted for Lent:
"The desert is the threshold to the meeting ground of God and (hu)man. It is the scene of the exodus. You do not settle there, you pass through. One then
ventures on to these tracks because one is driven by the Spirit towards the Promised Land. But it is only promised to those who are able to chew sand for
forty years without doubting their invitation to the feast in the end." Alessandro Pronzato
Ash Wednesday, from the UUA meditation manual by the late Rev. Clarke Dewey Wells...
In a culture where the plastic smile is mandatory and cheap grace abounds, the sober subject of ashes comes almost as refreshment. At least we know we start without illusions. All our minor triumphal entries end, like Lear, a ruined piece of nature upon the rack of this tough world.
The ashes of Ash Wednesday are mixed in a common bowl of grief. They are made from palm fronds used in celebration the year before at the brief hour of triumph, Palm Sunday. In the Catholic tradition the ashes are made into a paste and daubed on foreheads of the faithful, a grey sign of execution that must preface any Easter.
John Bunyan said that the woman of Canaan, who would not be daunted, though called dog by Christ (Mat 15.22) and the man who went to borrow bread at midnight (Lk 11.5-8) were, ultimately, great encourageements to him. They hung in there during dark days.
For religious liberals ashes can symbolize, too, the dying of the seed that it may be born, the place of the pheonix, and yes, the dissolution of integrity so that deeper integrities may emerge. The divine creativity leaves ashes in its wake so that new worlds may rise up and adore. In the strangeness of this business Ash Wednesday is the opening to Easter.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which slings so closely, and let us run with perserverance the race that is set before us. Hebrews 12.1
First Three Weeks of Lent From Wallace Robbins' Lenten Meditations and selections from the AUA Lenten Manual of Frank O. Holmes, My Heart Leaps Up, 1956---
Lent 1.
"All words about religion are shallow vessels; they overflow before the first dipper of truth has been poured into them. All words about religion are faulty pitchers; they leak throughout the path from the spring to the kitchen. All words about religion are adulterated; they infect the pure truth they were intended to keep unsullied with the vain hopes and the cynical dirt which every hand puts to them.
"Thus it can be said that religious words do not contain the whole truth, or are almost empty of truth, or that they are, as to truth, impure. And this has all been said many times by those who, in temporary doubt or in malicious spirit, think to discredit the belief hat a fountainhead exists. It is a very illogical conclusion. One cannot say with reason that the well is dry because the pail is small, leaky, and dirty. We can more properly say that between man's thirst for righteousness and the living water of God there is a less than perfect means of conveyance. But, there is nothing peculiar to religion about this imperfection of communication. Even between lovers there are misunderstandings. It is not verbal means, but the spirit of trust and faith which overcomes the limitations of sign and symbol, of grammar and logic.
"Lent is a time to think deeper than words can go; a time to pray more earnestly than mind can think. Thirst of the soul and the "water of life, bright as crystal," these two will find their own ways of meeting.
Lent 2.
"On more than one occasion I have observed the behavior of people when they have been requested to keep silent and to say nothing except in an emergency from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. Since something like eight of those ten hours were to be spent in sleep, that meant only two hours of conscious silence. Most people disliked this intensely and not a few grew hostile or, as we say in the back lands of New England, they got ugly. Two hours of silence was more than they could bear.
"Some felt their frustration most when they confronted another person who, nodding only by way of greeting, said nothing. Apparently they needed more response than this and, failing to have the assurance of a verbal kind from their fellow man, became anxious. They felt punished, for, after all, we do say, "I'll never speak to you again!" The quiet man who looks, who smiles or frowns but does not speak, is for them a vengeful man who punishes by his silence.
"Some felt upset to be quiet because they needed to hear themselves talk. They were perhaps their own psychiatrists who did themselves good by telling themselves all about it. Or they were like the person we heard about the other day who could not think before he spoke because until he spoke he did not know what he was thinking.
"The sealed lips forced others to look inward and to enter into dialogue with themselves. Instead of tossing off a bothersome problem on someone else, they had to live with it and try to solve it by themselves, in their silent aloneness; a painful experience for those who have learned to talk themselves out of doing any problem solving.
"Finally there were those who found that even prayer takes on a threatening aspect when silence ensues, for it is only when man gets through speaking that our courteous God takes His turn to speak to us. Silence is an invitation to God to put in His word, and we do not always want to hear it lest it be alien to our intentions and a disturbance in the midst of our unreal pleasures.
"What a rebuke is silence! For it is in silence that we stand in the solitary light of truth, uncovered and known. What a medicine is silence! For it is in silence that the seed of faith is planted, and grows, and becomes the fullness of life."
Lent3.
There are two reasons why God does not always answer prayer. The first is that so many people do all the talking that God cannot get a word in edgewise. The second is that too many people think they have the answer and spend their energy urging God to agree. God is not silent because he cannot speak, but because he is too polite to break up a filibuster or because he is dumbfounded to hear the extraordinary solutions which men urge upon the whole universe to their petty problems.
"It is interesting to read and to hear the positive testimony of those who have been taught by the newly popular meditation techniques. These spiritual exercizes depend upon their success in shutting the mouth and blanking out the petitionary thoughts of the practitioner. Trained gradually to be silent and to be still, to listen rather than to speak, these meditators begin to hear in the silence God's petitions to them. It turns out, more often than not, that it is God who is asking the questions nd that is is man who is expected to answer, a situation which neither Judaism nor Christianity finds to be a surprising novelty. Moses encountered God, not because he was looking for Him, but because God was seeking Moses. Jesus, in Gethsamene, got an answer to his prayer which made him sweat blood in agony.
"Sometimes I think that theologians who have insisted upon the perfection of God, declaring Him, for example, to be omnipotent, have not read the Bible very carefully. The Scriptures often put God's plight before us as a tragic one because man has frustrated Him in His intention to establish justice and love. He is sad to behold the sufferings of the weak, the arrogance of the powerful, and to have no power to change man except through man's agreement. If only there could be fellowship and peace amongst men! If only there could be joy instead of suffering! There stands athwart the Kingdom of God, the will of man, stubborn, resistant.
"It is the anquished cry of the Transcendent which, when heard, makes us come to a religious decision either to respond to the anquished cry of God for human help, or to flee, hands over the ears.
In our time "the church" has become a code name for God. You can thus allege that you are only against the church or, better say against "organized religion," while really meaning that you wish to avoid an unpleasant situation vis-a-vis with God. Over the years, especially at fund-raising time, I hear people say, "The church does not do very much for me." Which means that God does not run a very good service agency. Canvassers easily fall into the error of answering with an elaborate defensive catalogue of all the services the church has available, including funerals. The better reply would be to say that the church is not your servant, but offers you the opportunity to be reminded on a regular basis that you are invited to become a servant of man in God's name. At least to be sympathetic to God's cry for His people in their several necessities; to become an active agent yourself, rather than a passive complainer.
"Try being silent before the Spirit until your soul is a s still as a mirror, then listen and look. You will find that you came into this world to "minister, not to be ministered unto."
Lent4.
One of my colleagues has told me that he does not believe in intercessory prayer. If prayer works at all, he thinks, it works because a person has so concentrated his own being that it comes to a point. Praying for others is futile, they must pray for themselves. You cannot breathe for them, eat for them, live their lives. So you cannot pray for them.
"Strange, I sometimes think that the only prayers I can be sure are valid are those I pray for others. Gradually over the years I hve prayed less and less for myself because I think that my ego, even when I push it hard, does not wholly move aside and give me an unobstructed view of truth. On the other hand, when I concentrate on the needs and the hopes of other people I seem to be much clearer of vision.
"Of course that does not answer the contention that prayer is only an exercise of the soul, not a social action. I realize that, and I am not going to try to deal with such objection except to say that even if it does not work, I cannot but help praying for others. After all, it is not my business to say whether prayers are effective and how, that is God's problem. I just pray and do my part; I expect Him to do His.
"The other night I was at the bedside of a woman whose gracious speech was once her delightful gift to her friends and visitors; now she cannot speak at all but her lips try, her eyes try, she tries with all her waning powers to speak. So I prayed for her.
"Sometimes I meet people who hve left off praying decades ago. Perhaps their childish bedtime words got to looking foolish in their adult minds; perhaps a literal, fundamentalist Man upstairs used to listen to them and moved away after they went to college and took Science I, a survey. These prayerfully inarticulate people come to times of terror and deep pain as we all do sooner or later, and they stand there mute before their own judgment, struct dumb by the horror in existence. I pray for them.
"There are the young people growing faster in strength than in wisdom, bursting with vitalities uncontrolled by temperance, powerful in courage but without prudence. Strong, vital, courageous, prayer seems pusillanimous to them. I pray for them because pride prevents them from praying for themselves.
"Jesus urged us to pray for our enemies. I do. I pray for those too arrogant to pray for themselves, too egotistical, too cruel, too poor to be honest, too rich to be good. I pray for grafters, murderers, slanderers, thieves and pickpockets, prostitutes and drug fiends, for the middle class in its smugness and the lower class in its depravities. I pray for those too presumptive of their own moral goodness to pray for themselves. I pray for clergymen who do not believe it does any good to pray for others, that God will lead them out of their isolation and deliver them from their self-improvement.
Lent 5.
Living in a time when we marvel only at vastness, it is remarkable to see how Jesus upheld for man's wonder the small things. Tracing a loop around the moon with a space-craft, hitting Venus, unlocking energy from mass and making a flash of sun-like intensity--these provide for us our sense of awe. But for Jesus the examples of the shining glory of life were at the small end: the field of flowers which surpassed in beauty a king's coat; a seed, barely visible, which grows down into the darkness of the earth and upward into the light with strength to withstand the wind and to support the fowls of the air; a sparrow, hollow of bone and only a finger's pinch of feathers, but weighty enough to tip the scales of total existence when it falls; a day's ration of bread; a little baby taken into the kindest of God's blessings.
"It is not a matter of historical era, a difference in perspective due to increases in our understanding of vastness. There was, if anything, a greater sense of vastness and of marvelous force then than now. Gibraltor was as distant as the moon to us, and Rome more powerful than America and Russia combined, and, over the edge of the world were continents and great islands people with strange, feater-decorated beings they never dreamed existed.
"No, the difference is not hte times but in the soul's perspective. From the beginning men could see that they were up against vastness. The first campfire lighted a circle of wonder, but the shadows beyond the light were immeasurably greater. The scientific search began with a lighted faggot in a brave hand,m held up against the dark.
"The questions of life are not only of extent but of intent. We can prove that God exists at the end of a syllogism or that He is power which man cannot enlarge his mind to think, but, the matter of His intent, the question as to whether this intelligent order and this unrestrainable creative force has a capacity for affection and a concern for His creatures, this is the crucial matter. The answer of Jesus is that God is love and that there is no small or insignificant thing in His order of familial charity. Men should want to obey God, not out of fear of His tyrannical, heartless commandments but out of a warm gratitude and a happy desire to do rightly for Him who loves you as a good Father.
Make no mistake. I am a modern man and admire and wonder at man's exploration of the vast mysteries. If I am invited to ride to the moon, I am packed and ready to go, but, I think that a sympathetic heart sheds a light more intense for all of its smallness, than the distant, but very faint gleam of the kind in outer space. I think Jesus is right about the small things, so I watch the birds, and read the seed catalogues, play with children and try to be properly thankful for my daily bread. The love of God and His peace are in these little creatures and these humble mercies.
Lenten Quotes and Prayers from Frank O. Holmes. These first cover from Ash Wednesday to this coming Sunday. More will come.
Ash Wednesday: Tell me truly, Ahura, as to prayer, how it should be to one of you. O Mazdah, might one like thee teach it to his friend such as I am.--Zoroastrian Gathas. Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?--Gospel of Mark
Prayer: Divine Spirit, who art forever urging me to ask that I may receive, and to seek that I may find, bless me this day that I may hunger and thirst after righteousness. Amen.
First Thursday: God be merciful to me a sinner.---Gospel of Luke.
Prayer: Move me, Lord, to reach beyond my present grasp; to acknowledge the vision of the better person I would become, and the nobler world I would help create. Amen.
First Friday: Shun the brush and shun the pen, Shun the ways of clever men.--Alfred Noyes
Prayer: Not in forced gaiety, or frightened cleverness, or timid evasion, would I seek my way in life. Let me face the world with the full powers of my mind, that with all those powers I may learn to live and rejoice. So shall I discover true lightness of heart and peace of soul. Amen.
First Saturday: At the end of the day I hasten in fear lest thy gate be shut; but I find that yet there is time.---Tagore
Prayer: When I complain that life is short, and that I have too much to do, remind me that my imagination can travel with a speed greater than that of light, and that it requires only the fraction of an instant for me to act with courage, or to begin speaking with kindliness. Let me make the most of the present hour and day, having faith that in the future, too, there will be time for the growth and work of the soul. Amen.
First Sunday: I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord. Psalm 122
Prayer: Grant me the wisdom to belong to the worshipping community of mankind; to unite with my neighbors in the exaltation of thanksgiving; to offer to life my response in word and song; to find my peace in the large confidence and companionship of Thy Church. Amen.
First Monday: Consider that but a few years ago you were not in the world at all, and that you did not exist...The world had already lasted such a long time, and it had no news of us.---St. Francis de Sales.
Prayer: Creative Spirit, the evidences of Thy greatness are present in the order and intricacy of the world about me, and also in the mystery of my own being. Accept now my thanksgiving for the delight of life, and for the opportunity, this day, to share in its beauty, service, and joy. Amen.
First Tuesday: Thou, Almighty Father, has created all things; both food and drink hast thou given unto men to enjoy, that they might give thanks unto thee.---Prayer of Thanksgiving, Didache, 2nd cent. Give us this day our daily bread.--Gospel of Matthew
Prayer: As one among the creatures of the earth, I, too, must eat to live. Without food my body would perish within a period of days; without water I would die in hours. Let me then be humble before this fact that, since my birth, the sustenance required for my existence has not been lacking. Let me eat my food, not greedily, but gratefully. And let my dream be of a worldwide community in which the human and divine love shall be evident in the opportunity of every man to earn and enjoy his daily bread.
Second Wednesday: The eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee. First Corinthians. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Psalm 139
Prayer: I am awed, Lord, by the energy and subtlety of the forces that made possible my being. Even this moment I am alive because a vast community of nerves and sinews, muscles and bones and specialized organs, are united in a significant order. Even when I am unaware, sleeping or waking, this order is at work, maintaining my being and making for the increase of my strength. Let me show my thankfulness by the worth of the aims to which this miracle of my body is devoted. Amen.
Second Thursday: May we live in the world as in thy great house.--Church School Prayer
Prayer: I wonder before the tenacity of life's hold upon this otherwise bleak and barren earth; the way in which the moss finds its crevice in the rock, the bird the corner for its nest in the tree. Grant, Lord, that I may return my thanks for the spot of earth where I find safety. And may I be concerned to do my part in the human community so that every man have his place to lay his head. Amen.
Second Friday: In the handiwork of their craft is their prayer. Ecclesiastes.
Prayer: Grant me imagination, Lord, to see the usefulness of the work to which I am called and of which I am capable. I would give thanks for whatever place I hold in the world's productive life. And may I remember that whether the task is paid or unpaid, conspicuous or obscure, as long as it serves men's need, and I perform it cheerfully and well, it will bring me honor in Thy sight, and peace in my mind. Amen.
Second Saturday: Nor is the least a cheerful heart, That tastes those gifts with joy. Addison.
Prayer: For the delight of the eye in seeing, and of the ear in hearing; for the sensations of taste and touch and smell with which my day to day experience and even my necessary labor are made pleasurable; for the satisfaction of the mind which comes to me through today's thought and effort and companionship: I would give Thee thanks. Amen.
Second Sunday: When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.--Gospel of Matthew
Prayer: Give me courage, Lord, to belong to Thy Church; to share my faith with others, and to draw upon their insight and hope; to learn a language of the spirit which there men can speak and understand; to let my mind be enlightened and my heart be moved by the larger conscience and vision of aspiring mankind. Amen.
Third Monday: For we have seen but a few of his works--Ecclesiastes.
Meditation: I am glad that the Universe, my home, is large enough for all needs of the soul; that there are no walls to limit my imagining, or that of my fellows; that even the human mind, so swift and penetrating in its curiosity, finds its environment a challenge to its power; that impressive as are the discoveries of science, the speculations of philosophy, and the intricate realizations of nature and history, there are beyond all these the possibilities of what is still to be known and achieved.
Third Tuesday: Before all things we give thanks to thee that thou art mighty.--Didache.
Prayer: Even as I am awed by Thy power, I rejoice in it, O God. In that power is the assurance of the spirit's hopes, and the promise of the future's worth, I am proud, too, that Thou has entrusted into the hands of men the direction of a portion of this energy. May we, may I, prove responsible in this trust. Amen.
Third Wednesday: Praised be my Lord for our mother the earth, the which...bringeth forth divers fruit and flowers of many colors, and grass.--St. Francis of Assisi.
Meditation: Before the wonder of living and growing things let me be humble. It is of this bold and varied venture of Creative Power that I have received my being; these creatures are my kin; in their tenacity and adaptability I see the vigor and promise of the human race; their artless joy calls me to cheerfulness and hope.
Third Thursday: How Natur...teacheth man by beauty, and by the lure of sense leadeth him ever upward to heav'n;y things.--Robert Bridges.
Meditation: That there should be color at all in the world, the whiteness of pure light, the blue of sky and sea, the delicate flush of a child's cheek; that there should be rhythm and melody in sound, the sweetness of the meadowlark's call, the roar of thunder and the lion's voice; that there is the regularity of the planets' movements, the awesome vistas of great distances, the soft hush of wind through the grass--that with the being of things there is this accompaniment of grace, I offer my wondering thanks. This is an unfailing comfort to me: that the Lord of Life is also a Lover of Beauty, and by this delight teaches and ennobles.
Third Friday: Whle the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.
Meditation: I know how much more intricate and far-reaching than men used to assume is the order with which I am in relationship. Every chemical element has its unvarying properties, every molecule its regulated energy. And this order, whose domain reaches from the invisible electron to the most distant star, touches me, too and makes possible the stability and continuity of my being. The forcve which holds the planets in their courses enables my heart and brain to function, and offers my will its opportunity to act. Let me then not resent what is fixed and unchanging and sometimes limiting in my experience, but find here the materials and tools with which I am to work. And, like every good workman, let me appreciate the materials and tools, and rejoice in the work.
Third Saturday: Behold the sower went forth to sow. First the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.--Gospel of Mark
Prayer: Mighty Spirit, teach me to rejoice in all experiences of growth; in the seed which draws its nourishment from soil and air and becomes the graceful flower or towering tree; in the fledgling which learns to soar and sing; in the cell which develops into the mystery of flesh and brain; in the sowing which increases into the harvest. Above all, I thank Thee for the outreaching power of the human soul: for the child's endowment of curiosity, the inquiring urgency of youth, the older person's hunger to understand and to be understood. Help me, in all times and places, to be an encourager of the spirit's fuller realization. So shall I, too, enter even this day into a larger righteousness and a new joy. Amen.
Third Sunday: O Life that maketh all things new--the blooming earth, the thoughts of men!--Samuel Longfellow
Meditation: Let me understand that vast as is the universe in times of space, it is equally ample in its possibilities of good. The distances which the astronomers mesure in light years--these are symbols of the openness of the future. And what I love and choose this day; this is my offering to God of what I am making of my life--the materials from which, in turn, I ask Him to build that better life and world which I need, and for which He, too, is seeking.
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