The birth of respect

Posted on by livinggodsmission

by Brandon Beck

Sister Wendy Beckett, SNDdeN (25 February 1930 – 26 December 2018), well-known Catholic nun, hermit, teacher, and art historian is my Lenten guide this year. Among the many videos, TV series, books, and other media Sister Wendy produced in her life, two books stand out to me for such a time as Lent: The Art of Lent: A painting a day from Ash Wednesday to Easter (SPCK: London, 2017) and The Art of Holy Week & Easter: Meditations on the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus (SPCK: London, 2021, posthumous).

Recently, I was asked “to recall a time when [I] came to respect the dignity of another human being [and to share w]hat allowed that to happen.”

How divine that God should give me Sister Wendy’s Lenten and Easter books as guides while also asking me this discernment question.

I wonder how you might answer the prompt for yourself, what you might recall of such a transformational moment in your own life.

As I am walking with Sister Wendy this season, I find that I cannot pinpoint the moment I came to respect the dignity of another until I reflect on the moment I came to respect my own dignity.

I struggle by using words when words are not necessary. I speak to fill silence, over-intellectualize, info-dump, and people-please with mimicry and excessive explanation. At times,  I can be inauthentic, raising my own feelings of inadequacy and subsequent lack of self-respect.

Lent has become a time for me to practice a better way of thinking, feeling, and acting toward myself. I focus more deeply on drawing near to God through silence, pause, listening, and taking on perspectives other than my own.

If I can improve my conscious contact with God through seeing myself more as God sees me –with dignity and respect – then I can see others more as God sees them, with that same dignity and respect. With those clearer lenses, I can perform fewer of those overcompensating behaviors, thus reducing my shame cycle.

Woman with a pink (1665-69) Rembrandt, The Met 5th Ave, G616

Here’s just one example of how Sister Wendy is helping me.

The First Sunday of Lent, Sister Wendy themes Silence. For Monday of that first week, she reflects on Profound silence using Rembrandt’s Woman with a pink (1665-69). She says, “The capacity for silence – a deep, creative awareness of one’s inner truth – is what distinguishes us as human.”

Sister Wendy says of Rembrandt’s Woman, “she is explicitly encountering the mystery of being human.”

And that’s the key for me: simply encounter the mystery of being human. In the silence of the streets of New York City surrounded by the crowds rushing by; on the edge of the Grand Canyon surrounded by skunks, squirrels, and moose; holding the hand of my beloved; not doing, when yesterday I would have done.

Let me find my own inner silence and let the mystery be.

Finding your calling

Posted on by livinggodsmission

by Fletcher Lowe

“Jesus is in the legislature. If he were not there I would not be either.”

Rep. Byron Rushing, Member of the Massachusetts State Legislature

Lent is a season of penitence. In keeping with that we Episcopalians in the Liturgy put the Penitential Order front and center. We talk a lot about sin and forgiveness and reconciliation and redemption—all significant Christian themes.

That being said, let’s take a second look and go back to the reason that Jesus went into the wilderness. It was not for repentance; it was for vocation. As I read the accounts, it was to figure out what his mission and ministry were to be. Now the devil helped him in that by offering him at least three other options—each of which he refused. Out of the 40 days he emerged with his mission/ministry: to proclaim the Kingdom of God is at hand. His teachings and healings and other miracles gave credence to that.

For me that provides an alternative focus for Lent: to critique how I am doing in understanding my calling as a follower of Christ in my daily life and work. Relevant questions might be:

  • In whatever I do, what is the faith connection?
  • In my everyday life, how is God calling me to “proclaim by word and example…, to seek and serve…, to strive….,” as we affirm in the Baptismal Covenant.

Each of us, by the very nature of our Baptism, has been sent “into the world to love and serve the Lord.” That world is wherever and with whomever we “live and move and have our being”: in our work and home and community and school.

Christ, in his 40 days in the wilderness, gives us a model: to take some time focusing on what we do beyond Sunday. Thanks be to God who gives us the opportunity, in our own way, to be “Christ” with those whom we meet in everyday life.