Going Public - by Richard Treacy
Image: Sam Howitz via photopin
St Brendan’s in the City has been a place where I have found fellow wilderness travelers. Sometimes we have just bumped into each other for a moment. Sometimes we have walked with each other a while. And many times we have sat together, looked around at the landscape, and just wondered...
Over the past three years I have had countless private discussions about everyday wilderness experiences, and now feel it is time to embrace the themes of those discussions in a more public setting.
We have just left behind the Christmas season and now turn our faces towards preparing for Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection. We must pass through the Lenten season to get there. Lent has always been a time to reflect on the wilderness and what happens there. Fortunately we are never alone. It seems that the Spirit drives us to the wilderness, walks with us in the wilderness, and leads us out again.
This Lenten season we are going to the wilderness where we will reflect on four shared wilderness experiences very specific to our congregation. Those wilderness experiences center around the desire for a companion, for children, for calling, and to overcome challenges.
The people of God wandered for 40 years in the wilderness and during that time received ten words from God via Moses which have become known as the Ten Commandments. I believe these words, alongside Jesus’ understanding of them, have much to say to us in the midst of our wilderness experiences -- not just as a moral code but as a conversation God wants to to have with us.
The wilderness can be tremendously lonely and dangerous. My prayer this Lenten Season is that we will all receive manna for the journey and that we will realize again that we are part of a caring, courageous community which continues to journey through the wilderness together.