Walking In Line

As Lent begins, it's traditional to think of a spiritual pursuit, usually directed toward self-improvement. Many people choose a discipline or sacrifice. Some think Lent is a sacrifice in its own right. I favor the self-improvement line of thinking and sometimes just learning to "be still and know that I am God" seems big enough. Still, I'd like to be able to put something down, in case anyone asks...

Reflecting on school and teaching. What is the most important thing I can teach my students? What do they really need in order to succeed? To what end to I put the most effort, my best talent? Well, if I had to choose I'd say the most important thing I teach kids is how to walk in a line.

The first thing you need to do is to find the line. I tell the kids "Find a line! Where are your feet?" They look around and find a line on the sidewalk or parking lot or playground and they put their feet on it. Step one accomplished! Everbody is standing in line. 

The next thing I tell them is "Show me fish lips!" They pucker their lips and blow out their cheeks, and you know something? It's pretty hard to keep talking with your lips puckered to hold in all that air.

Next I tell them "Duck tails!" They put their hands behind their backs and wiggle their fingers like feathers. No more poking the kids around you. That's how we do it. We find a line, make fish lips and duck tails and now we are all straight and quiet and ready to go. Works like a charm.

In spiritual terms, finding a line means embracing our vocation, that work and lifestyle God calls us to. Every Christian has a vocation to live the Gospel. So, during Lent, it's fitting to reflect on our life in terms of the Word of God. Doesn't take much, just a little quiet time, a Bible, and consciousness. (I admit, sometimes that last one eludes me.)

Quiet. How important it is for us to shut up once in awhile and listen to what God is saying. Again, our Bible is a great help since it is, after all, God's word. When a man cried out from hell for God to intervene in the lives of his wayward brothers, God replied "They have Moses and the prophets. They can listen to them!"

"No, Lord! They are like me. They won't listen. But if you send someone from the dead to warn them, they will listen."

"Uh, uh," God said. "If they won't listen to Moses and the prophets, then even if someone should rise up from the dead, they will not listen to him..."


Jesus rose up from the dead. Our Christian line, the line we walk on, is his word. How does he speak in our lives? How do we listen? Is there enough quiet in our lives, or do we let the shouting world drown out his voice? Learn to make fish lips. Be quiet and listen.


Duck tails. Put your hands behind your back. What gets us in trouble more often than anything except our mouths? Our idle hands. We need to put them behind, to occupy them in worthy labor. Thus subdued, they are not tearing down what God builds in our souls. Several religious communities have based their rule on the two complementary ideals of simple prayer and honest work. When Mother Theresa wrote the rule for her Daughters of Charity, she borrowed from two traditions. She told her sisters to work like a Franciscan and pray like a Benedictine. Keep your hands busy and your mouth closed. Then walk in line.


That's the last step. Finding your line, closing your lips, opening your hands are all preparation for one thing: to walk in community. None of us can succeed in spiritual life on our own. We must have some sort of community. We must "go with" somebody else. Who shares your journey? All it takes is one person, for "wherever two or more are gathered in my name, I am there among them." That's an awesome promise. If anyone really wants to meet God, that's the way to do it. Find somebody, anybody, who also wants to know God and join together in his name. Make community. Then all the rest of your work, your sacrifices, your prayers, your devotion and faithfulness, will bear fruit. 


Lent is a time for gardening, for planting the seeds of grace and tending them with simple tools. The rest is all God's work.


"We plow the fields and scatter good seed on the land. But it is fed and watered by God's almighty hand."


May God, who knows just how to tend a grapevine, bring you to bear fruit this Lent, and forever.