This post has to do for two days in Lent. I started a post yesterday, but my mind was too pre-occupied with the book I had just finished—Leaving Church," by Barbara Brown Taylor. She touched some raw nerves—her story has so many points of contact with mine.

After she left her parish, she had some "down time," before taking up her new college appointment. She writes powerfully and movingly of rediscovering Sabbath. Truly keeping Sabbath is a real challenge for me. I take my one day off each week, but it tends to get filled up with chores—things I "have to do." I take very little time just to "be," and I'm not sure I can even do it. But what Taylor wrote about her experience of being eaten up by parish ministry resonates so deeply, that I know I have to find a way to simply be with God, letting go of cares about what I should be doing.

So here we are, deep in Lent, and I seem to be face to face with the reality of my own spiritual poverty—trying to fill a deep need by doing, when what is needed is to rest in God's love.

In both Psalm 139:13-18 and Job 38:34-41 the writers refer to our "inward parts," and the mystery of God's creative ...   more »