Most of us don't mean to make a mess of our lives. But a mess is what most of our lives become from time to time: . . . sometimes for much longer than we'd like
. . . and occasionally without much hope of good coming from it.
If we're human, we can't avoid the mess. In fact, as I testify here in a recent episode of the new podcast Parenting ReImagined, the mess of life is precisely where we work out a robust spirituality in the midst of daily life, where we find ourselves nearest to God, and God nearest to us.
Take a listen. Dr. Sherry Walling is a winsome and warm interviewer (much like Krista Tippett of On Being fame, but wonderfully also her own person). In this podcast, Remembering to Breathe, she gets yours-truly talking about the darkness, brokenness, and mess of my own life, and the astonishing beauty that is emerging from it. She helps me explore family life, parenting, spirituality, and concrete practices for living in the mess without getting sucked down into the mire.
It's not a bad Lenten meditation on humanity, divinity, death, and rebirth.
Intention: Today, I'll breathe. And by breathing, I'll pray myself nearer to my own humanity. And by paying attention to the life that's living in me, I'll stop trying to escape the mess and instead, let God meet me here.