Lenten invitation

Good morning God,

Thank you for your invitation to walk with you this Lent - I accept.

Sorry for not having accepted earlier, but like many Christians, I guess I was too busy looking for a set programme or study package to use for the next 40 days to pay too much attention to what you were offering me.
It will be different  - not being able to tick a box or cross off a week, and it will certainly be different not having to try and force my faith into some postmodern category of  discipleship or spiritual discernment based on someone else's highly selected programme of Biblical readings.
Taking time each day to just 'be' with you, walk with you, observe the world with you, and listen to you will be challenging in the extreme (I do like to DO and to be BUSY) - but, yes, I think I'm ready, and - more to the point - I want to do this.
I need to do this.

I want to see the world as you do so that I can learn to love it more, in spite of its anger, betrayal, sickness, injustice and greed. I need to listen as you do, for the beat of the heart as it quickens in hope or in a pure unselfish act of heroism. I want to hear the whispered truth of love everlasting as it kisses a soul goodnight or gurgles in a child's first chuckle of joy, peek-a-booing its parent.
I need to taste the water of life as it collects in the petals of a rose or trickles in salty rivulets past eyes squeezed shut in compassionate grief.
I want to touch the grace that passes from hand to hand as friends exchange greetings or the Big Issue is bought and sold.

I need this.
We all need this.
I need to know this first hand so that I can proclaim it on Easter day as your resurrection in a world worn down and weary with death - assisted or otherwise.
I need to know this intimately so that I can carry it in bread and wine as the mystery of your grace which takes the ordinary and renders them extraordinary - regardless of what the theologians say.
I need to know this to live and fulfil my calling - not to a routine of ministry and appointments, but to a life of discipleship that will lead to perfection.

So yes - please - I accept - with all my heart. I  joyful denounce the temptation to 'do' Lent this year.
Instead I will walk with you and allow you to open my ears and my eyes and show me the world that you so love..
Starting now.