Lent: A Season of Self-Remembering & Self-Examination.
- Linda Lueng
- Feb 9
- 9 min read
Updated: Feb 25
Dear Ones,
We enter the season of Lent tomorrow, Ash Wednesday, the forty-day journey that mirrors Jesus’ time in the desert. Lent is often described as a season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Within these practices lie deeper interior and transformative dimensions of self-remembering and self-examination, both also at work in this season.
One way of understanding self-remembering is as present moment embodied recognition of a deeper current of identity ultimately rooted in God within a relational field of mercy, a field we cannot fall out of and within which we bear both belonging and responsibility. Self-forgetting, then, could be considered the illusion that our identity lies only in our egoic operating system and that we stand outside this merciful web, separate, self-contained, and accountable only to ourselves. It is essential that we continue developing the capacity to awaken to and encounter the imperishable wellspring of our own vibrancy and profound sense of Self and the Absolute within.
When we re-member our SELF, we re-connect with our SELF. When we re-connect with our SELF, we re-connect with the WHOLE. When we re-connect with the WHOLE, we discover we are connected at every level. And when we realize we are never alone, we touch into a deep intimacy and interconnectedness with All. This realization allows us to move differently in our world, a bit less lonely, a bit more freely and lightly. We wish to move into our lives from this place.
As for self-examination, it is not self-improvement, but rather an honest and accurate seeing of what is. In contact with the world, a personality or image of “I” forms. At one level, we tend to attach to this image, protect it, defend it. We become identified with it. And in doing so, we forget that we are more than this constructed self. We begin to notice the force of identification: how quickly we become “the one who is right,” “the one who is rejected,” “the one who is needed,” “the one who is overlooked.” We observe the enormous energy invested in maintaining these identities. And we also begin to sense that something else is present, an attention that is stable, free, and related to another level of Being.
As Jeanne de Salzmann reminds us, the struggle is not against our conditioned patterns of thought, emotions, gestures and postures. We do not struggle to eliminate these habits or reactions. We struggle for Presence. We struggle to remain conscious and not lose ourselves in identification. If we can stay in the seeing without rushing to fix or condemn, something remarkable happens. We re-member that at our core we are already grounded in goodness, not goodness we manufacture, but goodness that simply is. From that ground, transformation unfolds naturally.
The practices of Lent support us in self-remembering and self-examination, gently cleansing the lens of perception of the heart, so that we can see more clearly. They invite us to look more closely at what we consume, how we commune, our receptivity to help from beyond, and what we offer. Each becomes a way of re-aligning with the deeper Self that already lives in communion with God and with the whole.
Prayer, in the context of Lent, is not simply recitation or petition. It is communion and an inner posture of receptivity and alignment. To pray is to turn toward the Source of Life — God, Mystery, the living Trinity within and beyond — and to open ourselves to assistance. Sometimes this takes the form of silence. Sometimes chant, breath, body prayer, sacred reading, tending to children/aging parents/animals or even washing dishes with conscious attention. Sometimes it sounds like a simple cry: Lord, have mercy. Prayer restores relational awareness. It reminds us that we are not self-generating beings. We draw from a deeper well. Prayer shifts us from isolation to participation.
In this season, we might gently ask:
How am I being invited to deepen communion?
Where might I open more consciously to receive help?
Fasting is often reduced to giving something up. Yet the deeper purpose of fasting is to signify an inward re-ordering. It is a conscious sacrifice. We do not fast simply to perform a ritual. We fast to loosen our attachment to what has become too important, what satiates us keeping us artificially filled yet spiritually undernourished. Traditionally this has meant abstaining from food. But fasting may also involve loosening attachment to being right, a reactive thought pattern, habitual judgment, numbing distractions, compulsive reassurance, or one of the emotional programs for happiness that quietly governs us. Fasting exposes the places where the egoic operating system seeks stability through control, comfort, or affirmation. Rather than condemning these impulses, we learn to hold them in awareness. We allow hunger to surface without shaming ourselves and to remind us that there is another food, another wellspring. In loosening attachment, space opens. And into that space, something truer can grow.
We might ask:
What am I feeding on that leaves me undernourished yet full?
What has become a substitute for the deeper nourishment of Presence?
Almsgiving flows from remembered identity. When we recognize ourselves as part of a living, merciful web, generosity becomes participation rather than obligation. We are not giving from scarcity or moral pressure, but from belonging. Almsgiving may be tangible such as offering resources, time, or skill to meet a real need. It may also be subtle such as extending mercy in a difficult moment, offering patience instead of irritation, giving the benefit of the doubt, practicing quiet acts of courage or kindness. Giving widens the heart. It reminds us that we are necessary cells in a larger Body. Lent is not about becoming someone else. It is about remembering who we already are. None of our practices require harshness. There are no “shoulds.” There is only invitation.
We might ask:
Where do I sense a burden in my immediate circle or in the wider world?
How might I participate, in some small but real way, in lightening it?
We are invited to engage these practices — or others that draw us more fully into this season — alongside the many in this community and in communities across the world who are doing something similar; alongside the ancestors who have engaged these practices before us; and alongside the future kin who will one day take up these practices as well.
Much love,
Heather
Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses
*All previous readings & reflections can be found here*
Monday, February 9th with Tom
Reading: Vespers
The mismatched stack of fine
books on my right lay
unperturbed as I curled
into the eye shadow
of dusk, so hungry …
for what could
never be written
nor said
nor seen,
just that. — Tom Amsberry
— The Oriental Orthodox Order in the West
Tuesday, February 10 with Tom
Reading: Accidental Prayer
You see someone helping
an elderly woman gather
the things from her handbag
that overturned on an escalator-
lipstick tubes, perfume bottle,
loose change and you say
to yourself: I could do the same,
let a stranger know they matter.
Then the simple act of kindness
you witnessed becomes a prayer
that ripples out and out, touching
the far shore of your despair. — James Crews
Chant: Oh Love Consume Me; Let Kindness Arise
Wednesday, February 11 with Tom
Reading: “The Christian of the future will be a mystic or he will not exist at all”. He argued that in a secularized world, faith must be based on personal, experienced encounter with God rather than mere tradition, or it will cease to exist.” — Karl Rahner
Now God says to us
What He has already said to the earth as a whole
Through His grace-filled birth:
I am there. I am with you.
I am your life. I am your time.
I am the gloom of your daily routine. Why will you not hear it?
I weep your tears - pour yours out to me.
I am your joy.
Do not be afraid to be happy; ever since I wept, joy is the standard of living
That is really more suitable than the anxiety and grief of those who have no hope.
I am the blind alley of all your paths,
For when you no longer know how to go any farther,
Then you have reached me,
Though you are not aware of it.
I am in your anxiety, for I have shared it.
I am in the prison of your finiteness,
For my love has made me your prisoner.
I am in your death,
For today I began to die with you, because I was born,
And I have not let myself be spared any real part of this experience.
I am present in your needs;
I have suffered them and they are now transformed.
I am there.
I no longer go away from this world.
Even if you do not see me now, I am there.
My love is unconquerable.
I am there.
(It is Christmas.
Light the Candles. …
It is Christmas.
Christmas that lasts forever.)
Body Posture Prayer
By Order of Julian of Norwich
The prayer has four simple postures. And intentions. AWAIT (hands at waist, cupped up to receive): Await God’s presence, however it may come to you. ALLOW (reach up, hands open): Allow a sense of God’s presence) to come …or not…and be what it is. ACCEPT (hands at heart, cupped towards body): Accept as a gift whatever comes or does not come. Accept that you don’t know everything, that you are not in charge. ATTEND (hands outstretched, ready to be responsive): Attend to what you are called to, willing to be present and be God’s love in the world, however God calls you to.
Thursday, February 12 with Tom
Reading: A Blessing for the Inward Way
May you learn to dwell
Below the surface of the days
At home with the ebb and flow of
Your own heart's tides.
May you find the womb space at the center of your Life,
There grow wise in the sacred rhythm
Of filling and emptying,
Emptying and filling.
There, held safe,
May you surrender to the unknown
As completely as the dark moon
Empties herself into the secret embrace of her Beloved, the Sun.
There may you cherish hope of renewal
As tenderly as the crescent moon
Cradles the dark in the curve of her arm,
Enfolding, quickening with life new born.
And may you always open to the flow of love
As voluptuously as the moon at full,
Until filled, overflowing, you pour
Love's gifts out into the world.
So may you grow ever more intimate
With the inward way, the deepening way,
Where filling is emptying, emptying is filling ~
At one with the mystery, at one. — Tracy Shaw
Chant: We Are Held in Love — Joy Andrews Hayter
Friday, February 13th with LeMel
Reading: Thirteen
Come again, Life-Giver,
Blow warm breath upon the grimy snow;
Uncover tentative shoots
Struggling to breach the muck
Come again, Spring-Renewer;
Raise our eyes to greening branches,
Unfurl tender leaves
Hidden in budding limbs.
Come again in lengthening days;
Give us back our ambition
To sow the fortunes of our people
Beneath the fertile souls of Your teaching.
Come again in sunlight and gentle rains,
Nurturing the roots of Your law
With the ever growing sustenance
Of our faith.
Come again as we turn our faces to You,
As a young plant stretches toward the sun,
As a spotted fawn stretches toward his mother,
As the chick’s beak opens to her father.
— From Debbie Perlman in Flames to Heaven: New Psalms for Healing & Praise, former Psalmist-in-Residence at Beth Emet The Free Synagogue
Chant:
Life-Giver we turn to you
In lengthening days
In sunlit gentle rains
Come, oh, come again
Saturday, February 14th with LeMel
Reading: Set Your Seal
Set me like a seal over your heart,
like a seal on your arm.
For love is as strong as death,
passion as intense as Sheol. — Song of Solomon 8:6
The indelible mark of your care for me
Where shall I find it?
Everywhere and on my heart
The presence of your regard
When shall I sense it?
Here and now
The companionable hum of your lullaby
What melody is this?
Whisper close and thrumming
The honied taste of your presence
Who can compare?
Lingering and luscious
The incense of your essence
Why question this grace?
Only take a breath and pull you in — LeMel Firestone-Palerm
Chant:
set your seal upon my heart and live in me. — John Bell
Note: LeMel will start posting a reading and a chant once a day for a year starting on Ash Wednesday, February 18th called Quips and Murmurs. If you would like to check these out you can do so here: Substack and/or YouTube
Sunday, February 15th
Reading: A Garden Beyond Paradise
By Rumi
Everything you see has its roots
in the unseen world.
The forms may change,
yet the essence remains the same.
Every wondrous sight will vanish,
every sweet word will fade.
But do not be disheartened,
The Source they come from is eternal--
growing, branching out,
giving new life and new joy.
Why do you weep?--
That Source is within you,
and this whole world
is springing up from it.
The Source is full,
its waters are ever-flowing;
Do not grieve,
drink your fill!
Don't think it will ever run dry--
This is the endless Ocean!
From the moment you came into this world,
a ladder was placed in front of you
that you might transcend it.
From earth, you became plant,
from plant you became animal.
Afterwards you became a human being,
endowed with knowledge, intellect and faith.
Behold the body, born of dust--
how perfect it has become!
Why should you fear its end?
When were you ever made less by dying?
When you pass beyond this human form,
no doubt you will become an angel
and soar through the heavens!
But don't stop there.
Even heavenly bodies grow old.
Pass again from the heavenly realm
and plunge into the ocean of Consciousness.
Let the drop of water that is you
become a hundred mighty seas.
But do not think that the drop alone
becomes the Ocean--
the Ocean, too, becomes the drop!
Chant: When were you ever made less by dying? You are the Ocean and the Ocean is you.
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