In Keeping With Our Lenten Journey!

Excerpted from David Crumm Media: Read The Spirit On Line Magazine and Web Page

But, here’s the timeless note of hope: We can face even the most bitter truths, because fundamentally we are heading down the Lenten road as a People of Good News. We know our destination. In the turbulent oceans of change all around us these days, we are the people who know how to swim, to sail—and to pull others into the boats with us. More than that, on his own Earth-shaking journey to Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, Jesus tried his best to equip us for the road. He kept picking up and pointing out things along the way that he wanted us all to remember—like programming the gospel equivalent of a spiritual GPS. Perhaps if he drove to Jerusalem today in a van with his friends, Jesus would tap it all into a hand-held device and position it on the dashboard so we’d never get lost, again. The Good News is we’re not lost. Maybe restless, rootless and bruised, but we’re not lost. Two billion Christians around the world will mark the Lenten season in some fashion this year, including hundreds of millions of Americans. All around the world, we are people on the move. We’re just like Jesus’ friends two millennia ago. And, the truth of this journey is so timeless that it is echoed and reflected everywhere we look—if we only have eyes and ears to truly recognize the meaningful things along our path. Do you know the most frequently asked question by news reporters covering refugee stories around the world? This same question pops up all around the world, when reporters talk to men, women and children who were burned out, bombed out, blown out, driven out. Can you think of the question? It’s this: “What did you carry with you when you left your home?” What would you carry? It’s not an idle question because, whether you know it or not, we’re all moving in our rapidly transforming global culture. That young couple in New Orleans rumbling away down the road in a nearly overloaded U-Haul? That’s us — our human family. We’re already carrying things as we search for home.

Diane Fausel