Welcome to this meditation series for the season of Lent.
If you are unfamiliar with the liturgical season of Lent,
It is the six weeks,
Or forty days preceding Easter.
Reflecting the forty days Jesus spent in the desert,
This time of fasting,
Prayer,
And giving prepares us for the miracle of the resurrection.
This series is based on the Christian story,
But know all are welcome who know the justice of this world is imperfect.
Find a comfortable seat.
Take a deep breath and close your eyes.
Let us first ground in our body.
Take a few more deep,
Slow breaths.
Listen to the rhythm of your breath and find the rhythm of your heart.
This is the movement of your existence.
Here is the core of who you are in your body,
How you experience the world,
How the world experiences you.
Accept this breath and this heartbeat as the movement of you.
It is continuous and steady,
The same as it was for you ten years ago,
One hour ago,
Tomorrow,
Ten years from now.
Your breath and your heartbeat does not change,
Yet it sustains every change you have ever been through and will ever become.
Here you are.
You are in the desert,
Again,
Your desert.
It is a familiar landscape now.
You are beginning to know the plants and animals you see.
The heat feels safe.
The wind is your sibling,
Not your adversary.
The earth feels so solid beneath you.
This is not a place of fear or of hardship,
Though not everything is easy.
It is like any other place.
As you look around,
You notice a small sand dune with no plants to anchor it.
You watch the wind swirl around it,
Shifting grains of sand like glitter.
You watch the patterns change as the wind picks up,
Then dies down,
Then picks up again.
It is a dance,
The sand,
The wind,
The sun.
You let everything else fall away as you watch.
It swirls.
It tumbles.
It rests.
You finally notice that the dune looks completely different than it did before.
The size,
Shape,
And even location has changed.
In just a few minutes,
The dune has been transformed.
Jesus took Peter,
James,
And John,
His brother,
And led them up a high mountain by themselves,
And he was transfigured before them.
His face shone like the sun,
And his clothes became white as light.
There is so much in the world you want to see transformed.
Small changes and large upheavals.
You can see what needs correction and desire so deeply to make it better.
Everyone needs everything to be better.
It can be overwhelming.
Take a deep breath.
Imagine yourself bending down and touching the sand.
Your fingers leave indentations.
You put the palm of your hand down,
And it flattens.
You swirl your fingers in it,
And it makes a pattern.
You take another deep breath,
And look at what you have made in the sand.
Change.
The sand is different than it was before.
You have made change.
A small breeze rakes across your sand patterns,
And they change again.
Things change all the time.
And you are part of that shaping.
Transformation is possible.
For now,
You sit and watch the play of the sand,
The wind,
And the other elements of your desert.
The dune you watched before moves again.
Mounds and valleys are made,
Destroyed,
And changed over and over.
The clouds move.
The sun sets.
The desert is different again.
You take a deep breath.
Transformation is possible.
