Click here for a higher resolution image of the items in my Lenten satchel.
Being raised Baptist, I am somewhat new to Lent. My church and I began observing this season in earnest about ten years ago. My first Lenten experiences mostly involved classic spirituality by subtraction – giving things up for Lent. This is a good thing to do. After all, Jesus gave up food and comforts when he entered the desert for forty days. I don’t want to be overly simplistic, but if it’s good enough for Jesus, it’s probably good enough for me. So my Lenten journey always involves giving up some comforts. This year is no exception, but this year I am doing something different as well.
Lent 2010 marks a major change in my life. I resigned from my position as pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in February, just before Lent began. For the first time I am not involved in guiding or leading others in this season. For the first time, I am free to design my own spiritual program. To be fair, I was always free to do that. But as a pastor, I foolishly allowed the busy-ness of planning Lent for others to use up all of my energy.
So Lent 2010 is an indulgent season for me. This year my life matters. This year I am paying attention to the state of my own soul and trying not to pay attention to how others are dealing with Lent.
The day before Ash Wednesday, I got an old satchel out of my closet and began filling it with things that are spiritually significant to me. Some of these things might be considered “churchy” and others might not. I make no such distinctions. Everything in my satchel has been an important part of opening my mind, expanding my heart, and teaching me to be more prayerful and able to listen for God’s work and words in our world.
My Lenten satchel contains the following items:
- A copy of the Didache with commentary by Tony Jones.
- The Creation of Consciousness: Jung’s Myth for Modern Man by Edward Edinger
- The Greek New Testament, along with a parsing guide.
- A moleskine notebook that contains my new and growing translation of the Sermon on the Mount.
- A set of calligraphy pens and a bottle of luxurious black Mont Blanc ink.
- A set of drafting tools that I bought in a junk store in Colorado.
- Some proofs by Euclid that I learned and drew myself with the drafting tools.
- A copy of Inside Out, poems by LL Barkat.
- A recorded copy of the New Testament, read dramatically.
- Another moleskin notebook that contains my first attempts at calligraphy and my drawings of the negative spaces of labyrinths.
- A vision I wrote down for a house church model in 1999.
- A dream I had years ago, wrote down, and still don’t understand.
- My growing Franciscan rule of life that I’ve been working on in retreats for a few years. (So far I only have one rule and I still can’t keep it well)
- Three rosaries, all of my own construction.
- The National Audubon Society field guide to the night sky.
- The complete short stories of Flannery O’Connor.
- A set of water colors.
I could tell you why each of these things is important to me, but this essay would then stretch out to 14,000 words and no one would read it. It is enough to say that every one of these things represents a passion of mine through which I believe God has spoken to me over the years. I also love these objects deeply, both for their beauty and for their unique meaning to me.
During the season of Lent, I take time each day to do something spiritual. I draw proofs and paint them. I work my rosary beads, murmuring memorized prayers and scriptures. I read fiction. I read poetry. I read the Didache. I read the New Testament – albeit in a very slow and halting way – in the original language. I paint. I muse. I write. I pray. And I seek creative connections between all of the things in my satchel. A few days ago Euclid’s “how to find the center of a given circle” proof turned into a cross and that into a watercolor painting.
I do not have to finish anything. I do not have to explain anything. I do not have any goals other than spending a bit of time each day with one or more of these objects. It is the most glorious, challenging, thoughtful, indulgent, artistic, and meaningful Lent I have ever experienced. And I intend to keep my satchel after Lent is over. Why would I stop when I’m having such a good time?
I highly recommend you putting together your own spiritual satchel. Carry it with you everywhere. Engage God with great passion and love by engaging the ways that God has spoken to you. Be on the journey. Be in the season of Lent or whatever season you are in.
May God’s blessings be with you until Easter morning, when we will gather around the world, separately but somehow together, and say alle—-jah again for the first time since Ash Wednesday.
Gordon Atkinson
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Hmmm. … I like this. I carry around a bag with my Bible and a journal. I call it my “tent and altar,” (a phrase borrowed from a Cynthia Heald book.)
So you’ve got me thinking about what I’d put in my own Lenten Satchel. I’ll add these to my “tent and altar” bag:
1 — The O.C. … That’s short for Oswald Chambers. I won’t put him in the bag, but I’ll take along his “My Utmost for His Highest.”
2 — My girls’ drawings. I have this great drawing that Lydia drew when she was 7 of Jesus and the disciples around the Last Supper table, and one of the disciples has a word bubble above his head that says: “What in the world is He talking about?” … I love asking the questions, love the mystery of it all.
3 — My Grandma’s Cokesbury worship hymnal.
4 — My PEACE stone.
5 — My prayer shawl, made by a friend.
6 — My HOPE candle.
7 — The song, Exalted (Yahweh).
You’ve got me thinking … and inspired, Gordon. Enjoy this season. And I (almost) say it with you: Halle…jah.
- Jennifer
P.S. — I’d love to see what others would put in their Lenten Satchels.
Ooh, Jennifer. GREAT IDEA!
Thanks for listing your stuff. I read the OC years ago. Don’t have a copy anymore but I remember it. I’d love to see what others would carry around with them.
Anyone else????
This year my life matters.
Gordon, that made me catch my breath. I am glad that in giving up the life of a pastor, which was so important to you, you found your own life again. Maybe that’s how we know when it’s time for a change? When we can’t seem to locate our life anymore and need it returned to us…
LL, I am so in love with your poem “Tip, tip, tip,” says the rain to my sorrow. “Trust me, do.”
That’s the one that got your book in my satchel. Thank you for adding the delicate beauty of your words to my Lenten journey this year.
Gordon, it’s always interesting to hear what others are carrying around.
My little bag contains two Bibles (NIV & The Message), Walking with God (by John Eldredge), my personal journal, a couple of idea notebooks for writing topics, The Navigator’s Topical Memory System verse pack, and usually one or two books on the craft of writing. I like your mention of the Field Guide to the Night Sky and the water colors.
So just curious–now that you’ve stepped out of church pastoring, how are you spending your days? Has God lead you to the next thing?
This is great, Gordon! In preparation for this year’s Lent, I made my own rosary with supplies from Walmart (I’m cheap). My mom died right about Lent 3, and I am finding that my little rosary is really the only thing I can pray. I’m so thankful!
Blessings to you over the rest of Lent and as the Lord leads you beyond.
Meg,
Notice in the picture the big wooden bead strands on the left? Michael’s. Cheap. On the other hand, I did make a nicer rosary out of beads that my wife uses to make jewelry. But she had boxes of them.
Oh, excellent idea, Gordon.
I’ll have to ponder what to put in one of my own…
Bible
The Imitation of Christ
The Hawk & The Dove trilogy which I just started re-reading
sketchpad
watercolor pencils
colorful pens
… I’ll have to think more on this, but these items immediately come to mind.
Thank you for sharing your journey, and encouraging us to experience Lent in a more creative way this season.
Blessings,
Catherine
Drawing tools. Me too, though I really can’t draw very well. Still, I like to do it.
Gordon,
What a fantastic idea that reinforces the idea that all of life can be used of God, both the “spiritual” and the “non-spiritual.” We simply need to open our eyes to the possibilities, and then allow ourselves to be open to the leading of the Spirit.
Now I’m pondering what to put in my satchel…
Gordon,
I feel so privileged that my promptings caused you to write about your lenten satchel, and now you have shared this writing with so many. It is a great reminder that a good working definition for what is sacred is some of the day to day ordinary things in our lives that allow us to feel closer to God, to appreciate the presence of the holy more fully.
I have practiced Lent my whole life, having been raised Catholic and now in leadership at a UCC church. When I was Catholic, I did without something and when I converted to Protestantism, I decided to change that practice and take something on. This year, however, has been a huge struggle for me, emotionally and spiritually. I have been unemployed for almost seven months now and in some ways feel like I have been experiencing “lent” for almost a year now: the dark night of the soul, the solitary wilderness experience, working on my growing edges, etc. Sometimes it feels selfish to me to feel this way this year, because I still have so much. And yet….losing my job has brought me to the place (again) where I am forced to listen closer to what God would have me do, and learning to be more patient.
Thanks for sharing with me. I will be thinking about what I would carry around in my lenten satchel, but I do know that your writings would be given consideration. In fact, Gordon, you books are always within arm’s reach when I prepare sermons or other writings for worship. Your writing confirms for me so many things about the ways that I view Christianity right now. We are not alone in our thoughts and our wanderings as progressive followers of Christ.
tg
Thanks Tracy,
I prayer the dark night of unemployment will come to an end for you.
Tracy, you’re absolutely right: “We are not alone in our thoughts and our wanderings as progressive followers of Christ.” The past 12-15 months have been a “dark night of the soul” for me also for many reasons. I have been technically unemployed since December 2008, when my previous contract with a religion magazine was canceled because of the economic crash. I say “technically” because as a writer and editor, I’ve been able to pick up lots of small, short-term projects that have paid bills and bought groceries. Even though a new editing contract with the same magazine has come my way, it is a part-time gig that will pay barely a third of what I made previously.
I mention all of this by way of giving you my “street creds” for what I’m about to say next: I’m beginning to thank God for my new model of serial unemployment. I have had to shed all my pride and self-delusion. I’ve begun to discover who I am when I’m not working. Frankly, when I first realized what a cranky old woman I’d become (I’ll be 57 next month), I didn’t like myself much, so now I’m in the process of reforming my attitudes and behaviors.
Underneath all my pain and sense of failure I know that God has been patient and merciful with me, and this knowledge has deepened my spiritual awareness. I’m not as disciplined as I wish I were in my spiritual practice, but I’m making progress. I try to view what I must do to pay the bills as my “tentmaking” to fund my ministry as a lay Christian. I try to be thankful that there are people out there who pay me to write copy for their websites, even though the content is about leopard print shoes and garden furniture instead of the mysteries of God. I still write about God things; I just don’t get paid much, if at all, to do it.
So my vocation now is to be a Christian, and my ministry is to write about living as a Christian, and my job is to write about things that people will pay me to write about. And none of this reflects who I am really am in relationship to God and others, which is something I’m still discovering.
I hope you find a job soon, and I hope that your spirits are lifted by the thought that your comment to Gordon is insightful and thought-provoking to others.
cba
good permanent markers, a few pencils and my favorite pens
a sketchbook and a notebook with lines
a book of meditations called “Sonata for Voice and Silence” by Rev. Mark Belletini
an apple and a water bottle and sunscreen (trying to take care of my body.)
my camera
Rilke’s *The Book of Hours*
What is your translation of the Sermon on the Mount? Is it a translation from the Greek? Or a paraphrase? Or your own thoughts about it?….
Danger,
I should start by saying there is no logical reason for someone like me to attempt to translate any part of the New Testament. I was a Greek minor in college and took Greek every semester in seminary. I love languages, and I love the Greek of the New Testament. It’s more of a devotional exercise, probably should be considered mystical, since I have no practical need of a translation. More than anything it just keeps me in practice with Greek. So yeah, trying to make my own translation of the sermon on the mount.
I think thats really cool Gordon. I actually took 3 semesters of NT Greek in college myself. I got good grades, but did not enjoy it. I think it lacked the mystical nature of what you are doing. I think I might try something like that sometime though, as a spiritual discipline.
It was syntax and participals that got me. I kind of tuned out after that stuff
This was very touching to me. Of all the season’s on the church calendar, this one gets me all sappy. Of course it is of utmost importance, leading us where it does. I love your way of making it tangible. A good practice–one I may have to emulate.
Absolutely lovely. Thank you for sharing.
A few years ago, I was asked to “lead” a women’s retreat for our EV Free church; it happened to be during Lent although our church does not observe it. I designed the main day, Saturday, to be a day of these kinds of activities: contemplative prayer (including the Jesus Prayer), books by Merton, Nouwen, and many others who lead us into God’s silence; a biblical Stations of the Cross that I set up along the outside of our building with Old Masters’ prints to accompany each Station; charcoal, colored pencils, and watercolor sets with good watercolor paper; guides for poem-writing; journals (we made out own personal journals the night before), etc. Each woman was given at least three hours alone with God to read, pray, draw, sing, write–an act of recollection and worship. It was so popular that I was asked to do it again the next spring for our ladies.
I will have to post on my Lenten “satchel”–I have precious worship things I use during Lent and all year around. They include:
My two icons
Anglican prayer beads (different from a Rosary)
1928 Book of Common Prayer
ESV Bible
Divine Hours series by Phyllis Tickle
Spiritual journal
Daily journal
Poetry journal
Glass bottle of sepia ink and a rosewood dip pen for writing in journals
Oil pastels and watercolor paper
One Year Book of Hymns
living with what remains by Judith Deem Dupree (poetry book)
large pewter cross stand
Stations of the Cross book (handmade)
Thanks for reminding me of my own Lenten worship “satchel.”
PS I blogged about my own “Lenten Satchel” here:
http://meditativemeanderings.blogspot.com/2010/03/my-lenten-satchel.html
Ooh, I love the ink and the pen. Love dipped calligraphy pens for the way the scratch across the paper. I have some burnt orange ink and a ultra fine point fountain pen that I use for making edits and corrections in my writing. Though I write best with a keyboard, I like to print out my work and edit with a fountain pen.
Also, what is that delicious typeface that you use to sign your name at the end of blog posts. Could it be that is actually your writing? If not I would love to know what the typeface is.
Hi Gordon –
The Waterman is almost silent, but yes–the dip pen’s nib does scratch most comfortingly across the page.
The nib I use for my dip pen is extra fine–more of a writing nib than one for calligraphy. I usually handwrite either with a dip pen or my Waterman fountain pen as I have rheumatoid arthritis and with both of these types of pen I don’t have to press down while writing so it’s much less painful and I can write far more than with a regular pen/pencil. I grade student essays with the Waterman, too.
When I created my signature, I chose the font that most resembles my own handwriting. Unfortunately, I did it on a site specifically for making signatures, so I have absolutely no idea which font I used. I created it at least two years ago and only saved the finished version to my computer as an image, so I have no font info, I’m afraid. Sorry! (But I love it, too! And yes, it looks a great deal like my own writing as one can see from this “handwritten” post: http://meditativemeanderings.blogspot.com/2009/12/word-of-thanks.html)
I’m just so very glad to have happened onto this community of bloggers who share my love of writing and the arts as well as a love for our Lord. Thanks for taking the time to peruse my blog.
In His Grace,
Susanne
PS The end parenthesis was caught up into my URL which messes up the hyperlink. Try this:
http://meditativemeanderings.blogspot.com/2009/12/word-of-thanks.html
There! That should work now.
I. love. this.
Thank you….
Can’t thank you enough….
I pray all is well for you, Gordon…
Be blessed.
All’s grace,
Ann
Gordon, I’m deeply touched by your post on the Lenten Satchel. As you’ll see when you read my reply to Tracy above, I’ve been going through my own year-long Lent as a result of the economic recession.
What I didn’t mention in the reply to Tracy is that my joblessness has been compounded by a diagnosis of “wet” macular degeneration in my right eye. I’ve already lost most of the central vision in that eye. Every-other-month injections do some good, but I’ve proven to be allergic to the antiseptic used before the shot, so that my eye swells closed and burns like fire. Loss of sight for a writer is truly hell on earth.
I mention that travail in order to tell you that your Lenten satchel post has caused me to rethink my own “sacramentals,” if you will. I also have several rosaries, along with a set of purple Anglican prayer beads. Lately I’ve often been carrying the prayer beads. I also have a piece of limestone I found in the Judean desert while on pilgrimage; it has a depression in it that fits my right thumb exactly. I call it my “prayer rock,” and I keep it on my desk and hold it sometimes when I pray.
I have so many books that I’d look like a donkey if I carried each one that was significant to me. However, I recently got a small journal with a Celtic cross on the front that I think I will use to make my own “breviary.” The first thing I plan to transcribe is the beautiful version of The Lord’s Prayer from the Book of Common Prayer from the Anglican Church of New Zealand and Aotearoa. Beyond that, I’ll await the Spirit’s prompting.
Thank you for reminding me anew to tend first to my spirit so that I may love and serve God above all else.
Grace and peace in Christ,
Cynthia