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“Follow me,” Jesus says. All through our gospel stories, Jesus invites us to follow in his footsteps. This month, as the season of Lent begins, Jesus heads into a vast and silent wilderness for 40 days and nights. All alone among the sun-baked stones, Jesus listens for the still, small voice of the Spirit within and around him. Out in the midst of a vast and silent wilderness, Jesus invites the presence of God to fill him, to call him, and to lead him into his life’s work.

It’s hard to believe that this is the second Lenten season we will be spending at home, in the midst of a worldwide pandemic. As the season of Lent begins, we find ourselves in the midst of a lengthy wilderness sojourn that none of us could have imagined last year at this time. And yet, Jesus continues to call to us across the centuries, asking us to silence our cell phones and our televisions long enough to listen deeply for the voice of the Spirit. Even now, Jesus asks us to step into solitude and stillness, listening for God’s call and claim on our lives. 

It is a profoundly countercultural practice that we are called to undertake this season. Even as anxiety calls for our attention, Jesus asks us to follow him into solitude and to hold still long enough to remember who, and whose, we are.

I hope you’ll carve out some time for silence and solitude this season, perhaps at the beginning or end of each day. Maybe you’d like to take up a practice of contemplative prayer: the kind of prayer that asks us to become silent and still, simply inviting the divine presence to do its work within us. 

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May the silent wilderness welcome you this season. May you hear the whisper of God’s wild, holy Spirit calling you home.

Rev. Yael Lachman

Once, I was secure

in familiar territory

in my sense of belonging

unquestioning of 

the norms of my culture

the assumptions built into my language

the values shared by my society.

But now you have called me out and away from home

and I do not know where you are leading.

I am empty, unsure, uncomfortable.

I have only a beckoning star to follow.

Journeying God,

pitch your tent with mine

so that I may not become deterred

by hardship, strangeness, doubt.

Show me the movement I must make…