Making time for maintenance

From The Pastor’s Desk

As many of you know, I took a week off in January. It was a chance for me to rest and reset after a very busy year. While Jen was able to join me in taking a few days off, I spent more of that week on my own, working in my wood shop. I had been looking forward to a time such as this for most of the past year. When we moved in, I arranged my tools as best I could, and even completed a few small projects, but for the most part everything was approximately where I had placed it when we first arrived.

So, my week off consisted of putting new handles on old axe and hammer heads, sharpening plane irons and chisels, bringing in new shelves for storage, cleaning and organizing. To some, this might sound like torture: a whole lot of work for very little discernable outcome. But, to me, it meant that all my tools and all of my work surfaces were finally ready to be put to their intended uses.

As I was cleaning, repairing and organizing, I remembered a lesson from my first Tai Chi teacher. When he was instructing our class on the specifics of a certain movement, he would have us practice it over and over. When someone asked him why we weren’t moving on to the next movement he replied: if you don’t learn how to do it correctly now, when will you come back and learn how to do it?

I think this is a useful lesson for us as we continue our Lenten observances. Lent is a season when we focus on our prayer lives, on alms giving, on walking more closely with Jesus during these 40 days. If we let the busyness of our lives get the better of us, we run the risk of not experiencing Lent until Holy Week, when it has almost drawn to a close. For Christians, this coming season is an opportunity to undertake the necessary maintenance that our spiritual lives require. If we don’t engage with it now, when will we come back and do the job properly?

Though it seems sudden, the end of our journey is in sight! Holy week is not far off, and with it the celebration of Palm Sunday, the solemnity of Maundy Thursday, the sorrow of Good Friday, and the surpassing joy of Easter. May these remaining weeks of Lent be for us a chance to tend to our spiritual lives, so we may fully experience all that this season has to offer.

—Pastor Jon