PHOTO: MARY VAN BALEN
“…Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward being;
therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Fill me with joy and gladness…
Psalm 51, 6-8a
Today begins the ancient season of Lent. While it is often connected with “giving up something,” the next forty days are more than a time to lose weight by not eating sugar. It is a time to deepen one’s relationship with God by reflecting on what separates us from intimacy with the Holy One.
I love Psalm 51 and it’s statement of the Divine desire for Truth to fill our inmost being. To be filled with God’s Truth is to be filled with Compassionate Love, for ourselves and for all. How can this happen? How does one grow in the ability to hold God’s Presence within?
While giving up candy or too much television may be good things, they are good not because candy or television is innately “bad,” but because they can give us the illusion of filling up the emptiness placed in our deepest center, the emptiness that can be filled only by the Holy One.
What speaks to me in this section of Psalm 51 are the words: “Therefore, teach me wisdom in my secret heart.”
In order to receive this gift of Wisdom, my heart must be receptive. I must be aware of existing in the Holy Embrace, undistracted, present to the moment where God and I both reside.
That is the challenge of Lent for me: To spend time with this greatest Lover, time to repent of habits and preoccupations that keep me from opening my heart and receiving the Gift so faithfully given.
© 2010 Mary van Balen
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