Reflections for Lent, #3
This Sunday we observe Daylight Savings Time. I really don't know why, when we've thrown out so many traditions that marked 20th century American life, we haven't gotten rid of this one. Not to be a curmudgeon, but what is that point? If changing the times when we switched the clocks has made a difference in energy consumption--which I am all for--why switch the clocks at all? By the previous sentence I mean that when I was a kid we changed the Sunday before Halloween and the last Sunday in April--six months of each. Now it's not even spring yet!
So, I sound like a curmudgeon, what I don't want, although I'm curmudgeonly today due to an annoying experience in my doctoral class yesterday and the fact I lost an hour of sleep. I do like lots of sunshine, though. DST is exacerbated for us by the fact that we are fifteen miles, as the crow flies, from the next time zone, which puts us in our own strange little time vortex. Curmudgeonliness is a step away from lack of empathy and compassion.
What does this have to do with Lent? I have been thinking this week about the relationship between grace and wisdom. I started out thinking of them as, well, not polar opposites but as complementary. If you ask for wisdom, and use it, you won't need grace. That is, you won't do a lot of stupid stuff you will regret and need to ask forgiveness for. Now I see that grace is the overriding truth, quality of God in our lives, and wisdom comes to us because of his grace. Wisdom is a function of his grace. Wisdom is prevenient--preventative grace, perhaps.
I need thee every hour, your grace and wisdom, in this time of Lent and evermore.
So, I sound like a curmudgeon, what I don't want, although I'm curmudgeonly today due to an annoying experience in my doctoral class yesterday and the fact I lost an hour of sleep. I do like lots of sunshine, though. DST is exacerbated for us by the fact that we are fifteen miles, as the crow flies, from the next time zone, which puts us in our own strange little time vortex. Curmudgeonliness is a step away from lack of empathy and compassion.
What does this have to do with Lent? I have been thinking this week about the relationship between grace and wisdom. I started out thinking of them as, well, not polar opposites but as complementary. If you ask for wisdom, and use it, you won't need grace. That is, you won't do a lot of stupid stuff you will regret and need to ask forgiveness for. Now I see that grace is the overriding truth, quality of God in our lives, and wisdom comes to us because of his grace. Wisdom is a function of his grace. Wisdom is prevenient--preventative grace, perhaps.
I need thee every hour, your grace and wisdom, in this time of Lent and evermore.
Comments