I, personally, have had an interesting relationship with the Lent season. Lent is a 40-day period leading up to Easter (I know different traditions count the days and duration of Lent slightly differently, don’t @ me). Growing up, Lent was never really talked about or observed in my church, it was simply categorized as something that only Catholics did. As a result, I knew very little about it. When I was in college, a Christian group I was a part of made a big push during the Lent season. It was during these years that I fell in love with the idea of Lent. I am sure lots of factors went into my growing love of Lent. I am a person who loves creating artificial challenges for myself. I absolutely love those ‘can you survive for a week with only 2 dollars to feed yourself’ videos. Maybe it is the creativity required to excel at something like that that excites me. I think the fact that Lent coincides with spring plays a huge factor into my love of it. Spring is one of my favorite times of year (no not just because my birthday is in the beginning of April, but it does not hurt). Having the interpersonal journey of Lent start when the outside weather is cold, grey, and bleak and end with warm sunshine, chirping birds and beautiful spring blooms really helps to reframe my entire mental attitude toward myself and the world around me. Some of my first Lenten experiences happened on the beautiful University of Washington campus in Seattle. There is one special place on campus called ‘the quad’ that has some amazing Japanese Cherry blossom trees. Having Lent culminate with the stunning blooming of these trees is such a beautiful metaphor for the entire Lent and Easter seasons.

But I think I need to admit that I did Lent wrong for a long time. A common Lent practice is to give something up for Lent. The idea being that every time you crave that particular thing that you take that moment to think about Christ. I went all in on this practice. My first Lent I did a 40 day fast, where I did not eat from Sunrise to Sunset every day. I came to the end of it exhausted, frustrated, and in an emotionally unhealthy place. I was too hard on myself during that season. I told myself that if I failed in my Lent fast that God was going to be mad and disappointed in me. For this very reason, I know a good number of people dread Lent. They see it as a burden that they must shoulder every year in order to be a ‘good Christian.’ I think of Lent as a time of personal growth and a time of closeness to God. Those two things do not have to go hand in hand with being miserable or dreading these 40 days.

My own love of Lent did not really begin until I learned to practice grace with myself. I find it so fascinating that people are more ready to dole out grace and forgiveness to others than they are to themselves. I want people to enjoy and look forward to Lent as much as I do. But I know that will never happen if we put too much pressure on ourselves to turn into the perfect Christians during Lent. One way I found for me to do this is to no longer ‘give anything up’ for Lent. Instead my Lent tradition is to go out and find one or two great books on the Cross or on the Resurrection and read those. I guess you could say I am ‘giving up’ some time to read these books, but I much prefer the framing of adding something. Now, is this something I do every day? No! I get busy and might go a week without reading one of my Lent books. But that is OK. I know those books will be there when I get back to them. I have even had a few years when I did not finish my two books during the Lent season. I had to finish them up the week after Easter. That is just fine, the knowledge or wisdom or insights of these books is not restricted to a single 40-day window every year.

If you are someone who practices any kind of Lent fasting might I suggest added one more thing to your fasting list. I would encourage everyone to fast from self-deprecating thoughts during Lent.  Or if you want to spin it so you are adding something. I would encourage all of us to up the amount of grace we show ourselves over these 40 days. Use Lent as a time to grow and thrive not as a time that drains and haunts you.

Valentine’s Day is an interesting topic. It seems like people either absolutely love it or wholly despise it. If you have a partner, having a day set aside to reflect on how wonderful they are and doing something you love together is great. Kristine and I have enjoyed some amazing Valentine’s days. Last year, we found a nickel arcade and wasted an entire afternoon blowing through nickels. This year we got a new board game and are excited to play it tomorrow.

But I also know Valentine’s day can be a hard and depressing day for people. One of my favorite Simpsons episodes, “I love Lisa”, is all about how Valentine’s day can exacerbate feelings of isolation.  I have conversations with people every year about how this day reminds them of how lonely they are, whether because they are worried that they will never find a partner or they are mourning the loss of a loved one. We often try to give a consolatory word or an encouragement, ‘God has just the right person out there for you.’ While this is true, it is often the last thing a person feeling this way wants to hear.

It is an interesting conundrum that days and times of the year that are set aside for joy and love are also the times when people often feel the least amount of joy and feel the furthest away from love. Perhaps this is why there is such a rise in counter-valentine’s culture/events. Groups of friends celebrating gal-intines day together or game stores offering Valentine’s discounts are all efforts to help people who feel lonely and isolated.

I honestly don’t know what the solution is. Trying to curb loneliness is something we as a population have been struggling with for 100s of years, if not longer. All I might suggest is reaching out to someone in the coming days. Just a simple text or funny meme can remind someone that they are not alone and that there are people in their life that love them. Don’t limit it to specific times of the year. Make it a habit of reaching out to people. Text that co-worker you have not talked to in a while. Sit next to that person that always sits in the back row of class. Call that person you have not seen in church for a while. At RiverTree, we firmly believe that relationships are the foundation to everything the church can and should do in the world. Let’s all make an extra effort to reach out and connect with someone we normally don’t interact with this Valentine’s season.

As anyone who is reading this can certainly tell, this blog section has not been the most up-to-date line of communication here at RiverTree. One of my New Years Resolutions for 2020 is to is to utilize this more. So here I am, writing into the void on a cold, snowy January morning. To be honest, I am not entirely sure what this page will end up being. I might reflect on something I have read or heard. I might use it as a sounding board for up coming messages. I might recommend books or TV shows. It might even devolve into me just reviewing games or movies. (Because I do love talking about movies and games!) Whatever this ends up being I want it to be something we experience together. I want a dialogue; I want to hear from all of you!

Some of you know that Kristine and I recently got a little kitten. In fact, little Sheev Meowpatine is sitting on my lap right now as I am typing this. One thing kittens do a ton of is sleep. I mean this little guy sleeps 15 plus hours a day. One of his current favorite places to sleep is on me. Now, I love this. Who would not want an adorable kitten napping on them (maybe people who are allergic to cats, but that is besides the point). The problem is, I don’t often just sit or lay down for an hour in the middle of the day for kitten to sleep. But I am not going to wake little Meowpatine up, he is so cute sleeping—he snores even! So this means that for the past few weeks I have been forced to just simply sit or lay down and do nothing for 30 or 40 minutes at a time. If I happen to have my phone on me, I can read or listen to a podcast or something. But often times it is just simply being still.

Thinking about these times of forced stillness, I thought of the story from the book of I Kings where YHWH appears to Elijah. In the story there is a cacophony of noise and excitement that swirled around before YHWH’s coming but that, “After the earthquake came a fire, but YHWH was not in the fire. After the fire came a gentle whisper,” (I ki 19:12). Like many people (I’m sure most of you reading this) I am always on the move – bouncing from one task to the next one meeting to the next. That is what life is right now. If you are not continually going you are falling behind someone else who is. But I am finding that this does not have to be the case.

Statistics tell us that most people in our country are slowly giving up on church. I don’t blame them. Church can be a difficult and even harmful institution. Many people people have good reasons to stay away from organized religion. If that’s you, I don’t blame you. I have been in and around churches my whole life. I have yet to escape with no hard feelings at least and wounding at most. So, why not just give up? Why keep giving it another shot? For us at RiverTree, we are hoping to answer that question not with pat, oversimplified answers, but with substantial and meaningful acts of love that produce authentic community that is difficult to find in our culture today. In other words, we invite you to come and see for yourself what we’re trying to accomplish, and maybe consider contributing to it. Because the answer to improving the church is not abandonment but active involvement. We welcome differing voices and experiences into our community because we believe that that makes us richer and more like God’s family. Come on. Give church another try.