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40 days = a process toward hope

March 9, 2009

Posted in: livetheforty, the gathering

from the Responsive Reading i wrote for last night . . . it’s been a part of my journey this Lent . . . 

Forty days of warning.  Forty nights of rain.  Forty days of fasting.  Forty years of wandering.  Forty, the amount of time a nation had to REORIENT their life in a posture of humility and embrace the conceptions of Yahweh. A new allegiance forged.  Forty, the amount of time given to purify the earth through the God rains that flooded the wicked.  An earth renewal springs forth.  Forty, the amount of time Jesus would expose Himself to hunger and thirst while making space for His Father–even in the midst of Satan’s attempts to fill the space. A new ministry is birthed.  Forty, the amount of time Israel wandered, exposed to the mirror of their own conceptions that had been rooted through years of slavery in a foreign land.  A  new generation emerged.  Out of the Forty comes hope and new life.

Forty days.  Once a year. 
That we might see the new orientation of our compass heading.  

Forty days.  Once a year. 
That we might expose and smash
the false conceptions that distort our view. 

Forty days.  Once a year. 
That we might truly see who we are,
what we are becoming as people and a community.

Forty days.  Once a year. 
That we might ready our hearts for an evolution - an incremental transformation - that ripples out from the Resurrected One.