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Lent 2024 | Week 4: MIND

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Every week on Sunday we will be posting a new set of reflection questions based on themes and areas of our lives that are important to look at on a deeper level. We hope this is a chance to take some time to look inward, to process, to ask intentional questions about your life and bring those reflections to God, asking him to show us what is going well and what might need to change.

The fourth area of life we are going to reflect on is our mind.

Why Our Mind: The things we think about and give our attention to matter.  For most of us, the majority of our thoughts will be about what we do for work, the thing we do to make a living.  Outside of that, though, how do we engage our mind?  God has made our minds a powerful thing – we have incredible imaginations and power to understand so much, therefore it is good to reflect on what we think about and how we choose to engage our mind with the world around us.

Reflection: Here are some reflection questions to help you work through this topic.  Feel free to answer all of them or just some, and if you’re not sure of the answer, try journaling about why you’re not sure of it…it may just help you figure it out!  If you’re an extrovert or a verbal processor, try going through these questions with a friend!

  • What do I spend the most time thinking about throughout my days, besides my occupation?  How do I feel about this?
  • What have I become an expert on?  What does my mind understand really well?
  • Is there anything I avoid thinking about too much because I don’t understand it or it overwhelms or confuses me?
  • Beyond my occupation or what I do for work, what do I like to do that engages my mind? How often do I get to do this thing/these things?
  • What is my favorite thing to make? It doesn’t have to be a physical product like art, food, or crafts…it could be written like essays or poetry, or a tool like spreadsheets or event plans.  What do you like to produce that’s helpful, good, or beautiful to you?
  • How do I think my mind and work fit into the “good life” God wants for me?

Pray with me:  Creator God, you have made us in your image as creative beings with powerful minds.  Help me use my mind and hone it.  Help me engage with the passions and interests you have given me.  Help me think about things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy (Phil 4:8).  Amen.

Bonus: If you make it through the thematic list of journaling prompts this week and would like some more general ones to guide you, try some of these:

  • Am I noticing any changes in myself or my spiritual life as I journey through Lent?
  • What has been heavy on my heart or mind today?
  • How do I feel today? What am I worried about or excited for?
  • How do I need God to show up for me today? Is there anything I need to ask him for?
  • How have I seen God show up for me in the past?  What has he already done or been doing in my life?
  • What am I grateful for today?
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Lent 2024 | Week 1: TIME

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Welcome to CK’s Lent Journey for 2024! The past few years our church has been looking at Lent through the lens of taking on certain practices with the intention of letting go of other things in our lives that distract or detract from our lives with God. This year, one of the practices we are recommending for Lent is reflection, whether that is by journaling or through talking with a trusted friend.

Every week on Sunday we will be posting a new set of reflection questions based on themes and areas of our lives that are important to look at on a deeper level. We hope this is a chance to take some time to look inward, to process, to ask intentional questions about your life and bring those reflections to God, asking him to show us what is going well and what might need to change.

The first area of life we are going to reflect on is time.

Why Time: Our days are marked by time.  When we do things, what order we do them in, how much we are able to do, all depends on time and how we have ordered our day.  It is important, therefore, to stop and reflect on how we spend our time.  Our days are a gift from God and we choose how to fill them.  Let’s take some time to reflect on our time and how we spend it and why we spend it the way we do.

Reflection: Here are some reflection questions to help you work through this topic.  Feel free to answer all of them or just some, and if you’re not sure of the answer, try journaling about why you’re not sure of it…it may just help you figure it out!  If you’re an extrovert or a verbal processor, try going through these questions with a friend!

  • Why do I wake up when I wake up? Why do I go to sleep when I go to sleep?
  • What do I do when I have free time?
  • Write out a typical schedule of your day, what takes up the most time? The least? Is this the ranking you want to see? What could change and how would it change?
  • Is there anything I spend my time doing that doesn’t draw me towards the “good life” that I think God wants for me? What is it?

Pray with me: Lord, you have given me my days and the time each one brings me to do and be.  Guide me through my days and the decisions I make on how to spend them.  Give me wisdom to know what can and should be done and what needs to be left for another time.  Lead me towards good things to fill my time and away from things that are not. Amen.

Bonus: If you make it through the thematic list of journaling prompts this week and would like some more general ones to guide you, try some of these:

  • What hopes do I have for growth in my spiritual life as I journey through Lent?
  • What has been heavy on my heart or mind today?
  • How do I feel today? What am I worried about or excited for?
  • How do I need God to show up for me today? Is there anything I need to ask him for?
  • How have I seen God show up for me in the past?  What has he already done or been doing in my life?
  • What am I grateful for today?
Formation

The Elephant and the Rider

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A few weeks back at Christ Kaleidoscope we talked about the critical role self-control plays in Christian discipleship. Because of our affluence, there is very little to limit our desires. We can pretty much get or do what we want, when we want. This kind of “freedom” is a blessing for sure, but it can also be(come) a curse. What often happens is that over time we become slaves to our wants and appetites, which, when given no compelling vision of the good, grow wanton and unwieldy. We see this bondage most poignantly when we want to effect some kind of change in our lives. We try to change, but we find we can’t. In the famous words of St. Paul, “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do,” (Romans 7:20).

An apt analogy for this is that of an animal with a person sitting on its back. It dates back to Plato and has recently been popularized as the elephant and the rider. Compared to the strength of a 6 ton animal, the rider is small and weak. But the rider is smart and is able to point the elephant in the desired direction by pulling hard on the reigns she holds in her hands. But the rider will soon grow tired and when she does, the elephant will roam where it wants.

There are a variety of ways to understand this analogy. The elephant represents our wants and desires and passions. When there is no direction given, the elephant wanders and can stray in some troublesome directions. Willpower, on the other hand, is represented by the strength of the rider. While we may be able to exert some degree of self-control for a period of time, over the long haul, exhuasation sets in and the elephant ends up, once again, going its own way.

In terms of Christian discipleship, the elephant might be understood as our “old self” with all its ingrained and deep-seated practices. Pulling the reigns on these lingering habits often feels like trying to tame a 6 ton beast. Nonetheless we are told in Scripture to put off these practices, to take off the old self and put on the new.

What might this look like?

Well, if we use the analogy of the elephant and the rider we might put together a two-pronged strategy: (1) keep the rider rested and strong and (2) train the elephant.

(1) We might think of self-control as a muscle. If you exercise it for too long the less effective it becomes. And so like a muscle, we need to make time to rest. Here, sleep becomes a spiritual discipline. We all know we tend to get more cranky and unruly when we have gotten enough sleep. Well it seems there’s a reason for it. Sleep replenishes us to do the hard work of taming our elephants, so to speak. (We might also mention, diet and exercise here as critical elements to keeping our bodies energized for the task of Christian discipleship – things we don’t normally label as “spiritual.”)

(2) We can also train the elephant. That is, train our desires so that they become more in line with the good God envisions for us. The primary practice here would be worship. To put ourselves in a place with other believers where we are confronted with the beauty of the one who invites us to become “holy as I am holy.” Through prayer, through lifting up our voices in song, through hearing the reading and proclamation of Scripture, through confession and onto the central practice of gathering around the table, receiving the body and blood of our Lord, to being sent out into the world with God’s blessing, these become ways in which we align our wants and desires and passions to the wants and desires and passions of God.

A secondary practice would be to spend some time in a passage like Ephesians 4:17-32 or Colossians 3:1-17 and focus on one thing that needs to be put to death in our lives: anger, gossip, lying, lust, filthy language, etc. There’s a lot to choose from in these passages). But we single out one and instead of expending our energy on figuring out how to grasp the next rung on the corporate ladder or how we can experience the next cool thing, we channel our attention and initiative on how we might rid ourselves of that one thing we need to put to death.

The hope is as we put all these things together we can cooperate with the work of the Spirit in us so that we find ourselves bearing the fruit of Christ’s character in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and (of course) self-control.

Formation

Three to Read (Mar. 8, 2017)

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This week’s Three to Read contains some explicit language. But it is explicit language used to help us discern what is going on in the wider world, as well as uncover what so often goes unnoticed in our own.

The word is bullshit.

It’s probably a word we say under our breath whenever we hear Trump open his mouth. And so the first article is entitled, The Bullshit of the Trump Administration. It asks the question, “What do we mean when we say someone is “bullshitting”? In answering that question we are better able to see how bullshit differs from and is more dangerous than simply lying.

The second article wants us to know that There’s One Thing Pope Francis Wants Christians to Give Up for Lent. It’s easy to point out all the nonsense coming out of the White House, but Lent is a time where we turn the finger back on ourselves, when we stop staring at the bird turd in our neighbor’s life and start cleaning up the steaming pile of bullshit in ours. (NOTE: The harrowing passage about Lazarus that Pope Francis references is Luke 16:19-31.)

The last reading is just some practical advice on How to Break a Bad Habit That’s Holding You Back. For many of us, our problem is that we just do the same crap over and over and over. As the saying goes, bad habits are so easy to make and so hard to break. This article will give us a good starting place to do the latter.

As we continue in this Lenten season let us keep in mind what the first article concludes: “The bullshitter is the greatest enemy of the truth.” If Jesus is the Truth, as we Christians claim him to be, let us not be his greatest enemy when it comes to our witness of him in the world.

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Practicing Presence: Seeing God through the Sunrise

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The chill of the morning wind rakes against your cheeks. You look out, but there isn’t much to see, only darkness. You almost don’t notice the sky turning from black to shades of dark blue, but then you start to make out the soft edges of the mountains and the trees pressed against the skyline. Your eyes are drawn to a point on the horizon where hues of red are starting to peek over. You stay fixated on the point as you witness a changing of the guard. The clouds are now painted with oranges and yellows, and the sky glows with splashes of color. As the haze gives way to the sun, the pastel colors are brushed from the sky and light fills the landscape.

“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it, I see everything else.” – C.S. Lewis

1. God is how we see the world

One of the goals of Christian discipline is to see the world in the ways God sees it. There’s no doubt that we live in a broken world in need of restoration. Yet like the sunrise, God reveals beauty in the darkest places. It’s true that the light of the sunrise doesn’t penetrate every corner, just as we continue to live in a world where sin still holds power. But part of playing witness to the kingdom of Heaven is to reveal the loving and saving mercy of our God in places shrouded by shadow, even if we can’t fully eliminate the darkness. Like David Foster Wallace said in his 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College, “The obvious and most important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about.” It is difficult to see God in places marred by tragedy or in people who annoy us, but this is often when we need God’s presence the most.

 

2. God is always there, even when we don’t see him

When you watch the sunrise, you feel like you’re witnessing something amazing, especially when you’re surrounded by natural splendor. Your eyes tell you that you’re witnessing a once-in-a-lifetime event, and it actually feels like that until you realize that this phenomenon happens every day. This is a reminder that God is always doing new and amazing things in the world. Even when we don’t feel it, his presence is there, waiting for us. If we’re too busy, held by the distractions of our material world, we will miss it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there each and every day.

 

3. God’s presence is often found in the silence

I’ve noticed that one of the biggest reasons I prefer the sunrise over the sunset is the quiet reverence that accompanies sunrise viewings. Even though it’s entirely unnecessary, everyone whispers, and most people don’t even speak. Of course, the crowds are much smaller early in the morning, but I also think that the people willing to get up for it are ones who see the world with a greater sense of wonder. There’s an unspoken agreement to preserve the quiet awe in the atmosphere. When the sun rises, filling the air with light and warmth, there’s almost a palpable feeling that God’s presence is filling you from the inside out. As I’ve often discovered, when we are silent, listening, and drawn away from our busy schedules, this is when we hear the Spirit speaking to us.

 

4. It takes effort and desire

On a recent trip to Yosemite with folks from Christ Kaleidoscope, I tried to get everyone up for a sunrise. There was little urgency, and we definitely got out the door later than I had wanted. While rounding a corner on our way to Tunnel View, there was a brief moment when we could see between the mountains, catching a glimpse of the horizon. There were deep reds and oranges flooding the sky right above Half Dome. But by the time we reached our destination, it was too late.

It takes effort and desire to get up for the sunrise. Two of the best sunrises I’ve witnessed both required waking up around 4 A.M. in an unfamiliar time zone and driving almost two hours to wait in below freezing temperatures. There was certainly the temptation to slap the alarm off and say, “there’s always next time,” but my desire to see the sunrise emerged the victor. Similarly, seeing the world through God’s eyes and feeling his presence with us at all times requires discipline. We have to deny the desire to curl back into our beds and get out the door. However, in order to do so, we have to change our minds about what’s important to us. Through practices like reading scripture, praying, fasting, serving, and worshipping, we shape our desires and consequently, the outward actions of our lives. No, it doesn’t come easy. We have to be willing to deny convenience, comfort, and pleasure, push these things aside, and make space for God’s presence in our lives. But like getting up for the sunrise, it’s definitely worth it.

 

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Sometimes Quiet is Violent

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The Hsu family has been listening to a lot of Twenty One Pilots lately. Little Kyrie’s favorite is Doubt and Carissa can’t choose between Semi-Automatic, Trees and The Judge. One of the great things about their music is that, not only is it catchy, but the lyrics also give you a lot to chew on. One that has stuck with me the past few months is the song Car Radio.

Checkout the song before reading on:

Tyler Joseph, vocalist and lyricist for Twenty One Pilots, said this about the song:

The verses are talking about a true story of me being late to class…and I forgot to lock my door and when I came back out everything had been gutted and stolen out my car. At the time financially I was not able to replace anything that was taken, the GPS, the radio, all my CD’s. When I get in the car my first reaction is to put the radio on and for a while I wasn’t able to do that and finding out that once I removed that piece of me I realised that sometimes music can act as a distraction and can get in the way of where your mind wants to go.”

It’s true that quiet can be violent. When there’s no sound to hide behind we get antsy because we dread the oncoming onslaught of silence. And so we click open a browser, turn on the car radio, swipe open our phones. We fill our lives with noise. And it is this immediate stream of stimulation that keeps us living in a constant state of distraction. And as Tyler puts it, “it can get in the way of where your mind wants to go.” Sometimes what we need is to take a long look at the ugly parts of us that, if ignored for too long, will deform us in ways we never intended. This is no easy thing to do.

It is why I love the line, “Faith is to be awake and to be awake is for us to think and for us to think is to be alive and I will try with every rhyme to come across like I am dying to let you know you need to try to think.”

We often equate noise with being alive, with being awake, where, really, the opposite is true. Noise is what allows us to sleep walk through life, “distracted from distraction by distraction” (T.S. Eliot). As one writer aptly observed, “We live in an age of continuous partial attention.” This is our default setting.

Faith, on the other hand, points to an attentiveness that believes there is more to life than what is determined by our default setting. And to see with the eyes of faith requires the space silence creates in order for us to think. As renowned priest, Henri Nouwen, so matter of factly stated, “Without silence and solitude it is impossible to live a spiritual life.” It is an impossibility because such a life is nourished and sustained by what can only be heard when we quiet all the voices that bombard us everyday. When, in silence, we try and hear the only voice that matters.

So maybe we should all get our car radios stolen. Or maybe we can simply try and keep them off.

Then we can “just” sit in silence.
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Conversation #2: Desires

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There was a saying popular among me and my closest high school friends whenever we did something outrageous. It was our universal explanation for the inexplicable. Accidentally suicide in Super Smash Bros.–”I do what I want!” Attempt a half-court shot in a 5-on-5 basketball game–“I do what I want!” Out of nowhere, punch a friend in the nuts–“I do what I want!”

This terribly self-indulgent, but terribly fun, practice came from a 2002 episode of South Park that I do not recommend watching. In it, Cartman goes on the talk show Maury, pretending to be an out-of-control teen in order to win a prize. In order of atrociousness: “I had sex without protection; it’s my hot body–I do what I want!” “I slaughtered five baby seals with my bare hands this morning–I do what I want!” “I digitally put Jabba the Hut back into the original Star Wars movie–I do what I want!”

The scenarios above seem outrageous, but if we take a step back and strip down our actions, “I do what I want” is at the base of almost everything we do. Even something as simple as choosing what to eat for breakfast can be boiled down to the question: “what do I want?” Is it convenience? McDonald’s. Is it health? Oatmeal. Is it time? Nothing. Is it pleasurable taste? Small children.

Lobster

(That was a joke.)

 

The question of desire is especially apparent when we find ourselves in the tension between immediate and future consequences. In most cases, the more immediate gratification wins the race. (How many of us have procrastinated and then severely regretted it at the end?) However, somewhere along the line of our lives, we’ve also been taught to play for delayed rewards. We do things that we don’t want to do because we want what comes later even more. The most familiar examples are studying and exercising. We don’t want to do these things, but we want the future benefits we think they will bring us. One way or another, we are still following the maxim, “I do what I want.”

Therefore, it is important for us to consider how desire motivates our actions. Living in a world that is constantly vying for our desires, we need to carefully examine our habitual actions. We shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking private actions like watching pornography or indulging in sweets aren’t a big deal. They have the devastating ability to enslave us to gratifying our immediate desires.

Desires is a subject especially relevant for those of us who are fasting through Lent. As often happens, “who’s going to know?” or “what’s the big deal?” pop into my head during this season. However, when they have, it’s helped to ask myself, “what is it that I really want?” This is why I think it’s a great practice to physically write down the desires that we wish were more central to our lives. Going back to the lookbook and seeing the words “to affirm one another” “to pray more,” “to be more present in the community” is more than just a reminder. It is one of our first lines of defense against a world that is constantly bombarding our attention with advertisements, both overt and subliminal. It is a billboard of the ways the Holy Spirit is working in us. It is a prayer that says, “God, make it so that when ‘I do what I want,’ it is what you want, too.”

Formation

Conversation #1: Formation Happens!

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This is a reflection on Study One of the Ekklesia Project's Getting Your Feet Wet Series. This post covers Conversation #1: Formation Happens!

by Tim Horng

In Richard Curtis’s 2013 film About Time, Tim Lake does what every ordinary, principled human being would do with the power to travel through time: take a mulligan on all the mistakes he’s made in life. We’ve all wished we could get a second chance at all of the humiliating gaffes we’ve made, and it’s a lot of envious fun to follow Tim’s journey. He learns something about everything and eventually becomes confidently able to do virtually anything he wants, from winning over his crush to dealing with life’s greatest tragedies. Among the things he learns are two universal lessons about living that I think closely apply to our discussion of Christian formation. Hopefully, without spoiling too much…

LESSON #1: It takes practice.

When we first meet Tim, he’s dreadfully unsure about every action he makes. However, every time he screws up, he analyzes his missteps, hits the rewind button, and revises his life story (often multiple times). In Tim’s first foray into romantic pursuit, the stunning and playful Charlotte presents our protagonist with a bottle of sunscreen and a boy’s summer dream: “Tim. Will you do my back?” Of course, he makes an absolute wreck of it the first time around. His overexcited hands are shaky and cold, and the lotion erupts out of the bottle, spilling all over the place. It’s in her bikini. It’s in her hair. Thankfully, a humiliating run back into the house, a quick clench of the fists, and a few seconds later, he’s back in the game. This time, however, he’s a pro.

Unfortunately, merely being Christian doesn’t grant us the luxury of traveling in time. However, just like Tim’s character, becoming “little Christs” takes repetition and disciplined practice. We all know that the number of Christ-like attributes I have can be counted on one hand (or maybe just one, small pinky finger), but I also know these microscopic specks of Christ can at least be partially traced to the disciplines we’ve exercised at church. Two of the most formative Sunday Worship practices for me have been silence and confession. These two repeated actions have made increasing room for the Spirit to instill a habit of patient reflection, something that has undoubtedly tempered my naturally rash and critical tendencies.

Obviously, this kind of formation requires playing the long game.

However, we live in a world that serves instant gratification like a drug, and we love hearing stories of fast, dramatic transformation. While the Spirit is certainly capable of such, I feel that we often underestimate the sustained power of disciplined practice.

LESSON #2: It takes noticing.

After a lifetime of time travel, Tim’s dad has been through it all, and armed with the secrets to happiness, he gives his son a two-part suggestion. First, get on with ordinary life. So Tim does as he normally does. At work, his best friend gets chewed out by their boss, and he just sheepishly looks down at the table. At the store, the cashier rings him up, they exchange pleasantries, and he hastily pays before rushing out the door. In court, the jury declares his defendant “not guilty,” and he simply breathes a sigh of relief.

notnoticing

Then, part two of his dad’s plan: relive the same day almost exactly the same, but this time noticing how sweet the world can be. On this second go-around, Tim pokes fun at his boss and keeps his best friend in good spirits.
He notices the cashier’s upbeat smile, and he has a genuine interaction with her before leaving the store. In court, he sees how happy his defendant is at the decision and hugs him, sharing in his joy.

noticing

At the end of the day, he has gone through the exact same events as the first time around, but noticing has given him an entirely different persona.

Like Tim on his first day, too frequently, we go through our routines and end the day without a firm grasp of the hours and minutes of our lives. But also, just like Tim on his second day, we can increase our awareness of formation by noticing. Notice what makes us, and the people around us, tick. Notice what makes us laugh, smile, cry, and fume.

Notice when we desire something, and notice when God is present or absent (seemingly) in our lives.

Then, consider formation:

Where did these feelings, thoughts, and actions come from?

For me, these two lessons go hand-in-hand. Spiritual disciplines such as silence and confession have greatly helped me notice and consider. This has given my day-to-day life greater purpose and scope, and I feel I have come to a better understanding of the constant battles over the formation of my life. Doing this and then reminding myself of those words in Isaiah 64, “we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand,” has unquestionably been the springboard to some of the most fruitful and noticeable growth in my spiritual character.