c. 2007 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) If I could wish you a “Holy Lent,” it would have two components: personal and communal.

At the personal level, it is time to focus on the basics: prayer, study and self-examination. That means taking time away from normal pursuits _ sleep, work, play _ and giving time to God, even if you just sit and daydream. Faith happens when we let God in.

Prayer, or talking with God, can take many forms, from the formal to the spontaneous, from highly intentional to humble submission. The point isn’t to “do it right,” but to give God the opening.

Same with study. I’m reading a book called “The Passion of the Western Mind.” I can also recommend “From Jesus to Christianity,” by Michael White. Some are reading the works of Marcus Borg, Brian McLaren, Bart Ehrman and John Spong, as well as “A Wing and a Prayer,” by Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.

The point isn’t to find a soothing book with which you agree, but to join a deep mind in its questionings.

Self-examination, to me at least, has always meant journaling. Writing down one’s thoughts and feelings and offering them up to God. I see no need to make it complicated; just write whatever needs writing. Staples sells a nice volume of blank lined pages that I find ideal.

This hour isn’t about getting ready for Easter at church and making ourselves worthy of Jesus’ Passion or Resurrection. The point is to get out of our own way, so that we can comprehend what God has done. And then, with that glimmer of comprehension, to discern what God wants from each of us now.

That personal discernment, in turn, will refresh our communal life as those called out (“ekklesia”) in order to serve.

Jesus didn’t die so that an institution could be built on his tomb and its sway extended to all the Earth. That has been the aim of Christianity from the early years, and it is bankrupt.

After two millennia of dogma, holy wars, murderous crusades, compromises with the powerful and now the bizarre spectacle of a movement divided over who deserves shunning, Christianity needs to set aside its claim to global sovereignty and to focus on doing what Jesus did _ touching individual lives and feeding, not subjugating or hectoring, the multitudes.

This is a time for serious people to get beyond small-minded concerns and folkways and to engage serious issues.

For such communal refreshing of purpose to occur, we who make up the church need to sit quietly with our God and listen to a heartbeat of grace, rather than the drumbeat of our righteous conflict.

What will come of such personal and communal refreshing? I have no idea. There is no perfect script that we just haven’t yet discovered. There is no hidden secret in the archives of Scripture or tradition that can unlock today’s puzzles.

Creation evolves and develops new needs and opportunities. Becoming more expert in the past simply isn’t enough. We need to hear what God is saying today about everything from global poverty to the light in children’s eyes, from the cloud of despair to the brilliance of young love.

If God sent Jesus to heal the sick, we need to argue less about ecclesiastical dogma and prerogatives and to engage more with sickness. If the call of faith is a life devoted to service, we need to know what God wants done today.

An hour devoted to God each day might enable us to listen.

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, consultant and leader of workshops. His book, “Just Wondering, Jesus: 100 Questions People Want to Ask,” was published by Morehouse Publishing. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C. His Web site is http://www.onajourney.org.)

KRE/PH END EHRICH

To obtain a photo of this columnist, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.