lenten koan a.d. 2011

a few years ago, when i was worshipping with a congregation that uses the new three-year lectionary, the secretary, who was some kind of "charismatic" protestant, accidentally printed the wrong propers for the first sunday of lent. the rector was too kind to correct her, and so we heard and he got to preach, from a seldom heard part of the writings of s. paul. and, i began something which has become a lenten practice for me long enough to consider it a tradition: my lenten koan.

my lenten koan is some piece of scripture that i find particularly challenging, which is try to "solve" during lent in the sense of figuring out what it means in my life now. usually they have been from the new testament, and they have become part of the lenten discipline of prayer for me. i don't so much choose them as notice them as they are given to me.

but this year i cheated a bit. my reading about various sacred sites in britain or ireland, and the saints connected to them, often makes me want to go to wales, or sussex, or cornwall, or scotland, or . . . . you get the idea. so i was wondering how the land in which i live could come to have the same feeling of sacredness, and hoping for a koan related to that desire.

at the same time, i have been reading genesis, and at the thursday night soup and scripture, we have been reading joshua. so i thought i would cheat and choose one of the readings which occur so often in these books, and in exodus and in deuteronomy along the line of "when you come into the land." i decided i would just take the one from the beginnings of joshua, before i looked to see what it really says; wherefore wast i hoist by my own petard:

"every place you shall tread with the souls of your feet i shall give you as i declared to moses that i would. . . . have the book of this law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may keep everything that is written in it." (1: 3, 8, jb i am afraid to include v. 6: "be strong and stand firm, for you are the man to give the people posession of the land . . . ."

of course! the land is "given to us" as, and only as, we tread it with the souls of my feet. this is of course one of the big lessons from my patron st. chad, one that is ignored almost entirely by contemporary society, but one which is necessary if we are to reclaim our proper place in creation.

i will try to see how this koan is "solved" and post the solution.