Exactly one year ago I embarked on a 'Lent into Easter' journey. I took a ten-week Sabbatical time after leaving St. Luke's and before being reassigned by the Bishop. I gave a lot of thought to how I'd spend this time--but one by one my carefully-made plans unraveled.

Instead of having three weeks away at a distant retreat center, I ended up at home, trying to establish an interior climate conducive to restoring body, mind and spirit while living in the demanding presence of telephone, computer, laundry, making meals, and all the other tasks and diversions of ordinary life. It wasn't easy, because the minute I sat down and did nothing I would be nagged by the thought that I was 'wasting time,' and that I ought to be accomplishing something.

Over the next few weeks I struggled with this until, like a marathon runner who hits the wall at around mile twenty, I finally broke out of the struggle and found myself in the place of peace where God waits for each of us, inviting us to 'waste time' with Him. God waits for us to strip away our personal clutter-- our lists, our demanding distractions--so that we can be healed, refreshed and know that we are loved with the passion that subdued Chaos and created the world. In his book Original Soul, Thomas Moore wrote: 'The (true) self is not something to be fabricated by achievement, cleverness, training or learning…It is a gift waiting to be accepted and nurtured in its unfolding.'

The way we make room for the Holy is to stop what we are so busy doing. The secret of Lent, Sabbatical time, and all our daily quiet times lies in discovering a simple truth: God is like the hidden pearl of great price and the coin that was lost, both of them hidden or lost only to those whose distractions and busyness had blinded them. Finally, he way we accept and nurture God's presence and love is to grow content with the sufficiency of divine grace.

By the time you read this Lent will be almost over--but it is never too late to begin this sort of 'Lenten' journey.