Time

One of the things I love about the Anglican tradition is the liturgical calendar – the idea of rhythm throughout the year. Lent, the weeks from Ash Wendesday to Easter, is a  season of soul-searching and repentance., a time to slow down, take stock, simplify the schedule. Traditionally, the forty days of Lent are meant as an imitation of Jesus’ withdrawal into the wilderness for forty days (Sundays aren’t included in the count, since they commemorate the resurrection. For some, they’re feast days – but that’s a different discussion).

Some years I’ve given up chocolate, or coffee, or sugar, or all three, a way to pull myself back into balance after the binging on cookies through the holidays and Girl Scout cookie season. This year, I chose not to give up any specific thing, but to focus more intentionally on time – really taking time – to think, pray, read, reflect, prepare.

Our church is also focusing on time: life in the balance. And as if by design, the weather has been assisting, with snowfall after snowfall. Today, again, schools are closed, roads drifted, snow falling, wind stirring little cyclones of white that swirl across the yard.

This morning, with coffee in hand, and binoculars nearby to inventory hungry birds venturing through the snow in search of seeds, I’ve been reading Think Orange, a book by Reggie Joiner about the need to weave church and family more closely together. His thesis is that churches on their own are ineffective in discipling children and youth – as he points out, most churches have less than 40 hours a year of direct, strategic interaction with children. That’s probably a generous estimate, and the truth is, not much can be accomplished in such a small, scattered amount of time.