Dancing in the Wilderness.
Lenten reflection #1: On how to not write a homily, ordinary temptations and dancing amid the chaos.
Dear fellow pilgrim,
I am not a friend of Satan, really. I actually see him as mostly a great foil to project our guilt for all sorts of evil things we do to each other. So my theology of the devil and hell is quite fragmented. Still, there is this odd story of Jesus in the wilderness met by the devil offering him the whole world in exchange of adoration which was read around the world as the text for the first Sunday in Lent (Luke 4:1-13).
Now, I am not a preacher — only a preacher’s daughter - and thus by nature wary of sermons of all sorts. And though a kind reader asked me to start to write homilies I am rather reluctant to do so.
So what then shall we do with this story of the devil meeting Jesus in the desert?
Bear with me.
Today I did something out of my comfort zone. I sang in our local church choir. I have not sung in a choir for years. First, I had to leave my choir behind when I moved to the US, then I shied away from the commitment and then we almost out-churched ourselves during Covid.
But last Wednesday I happened to be at our neighborhood church as we wanted to participate in the Wednesday supper. That opportunity was canceled thanks to the snow, and I found myself wandering into choir practice. And that was it.
I know, I know there are more important things these days to do which are outside your comfort zone. Protesting, or talking to your neighbor who voted differently than you, for instance.
But for me it was choir. Being close to people again, being committed to a church again, sitting through practice again. “Do you really want to do this?,” someone whispered in my ear this morning. You can call and let them know you have lost your voice overnight. Or you are having a cold. They all wear those white robes, don’t you think white makes you look a tad pale?
And any way, wouldn’t you rather hide in the back of the church in the last pew?
This last one felt very valid and it almost won me over.
But then I took our 5 year old to bravely walk through the snow to church, leaving her at Sunday School and walking up to choir practice before church. I squeezed myself in the place offered in the first row and tried to keep a friendly smile.
My heart was pounding. Social anxiety after Covid years is still a real thing. And I have preferred to keep some distance since.
Now, one could call my doubts a temptation. Small in comparison to the voice one hears wandering in the wilderness for 40 days. But still.
The status quo is tempting. Our comfort zone is tempting. The back row where no one sees you and you cannot make a mistake is tempting.
Not being too close to ordinary folks is tempting. And frankly, not being too close to too many friendly folks is tempting to me pretty much anytime.
So how then do we distinguish between all those inner voices competing for our attention? The one which helps us navigate difficulties and who knows the right path forward and the one which is more likely holding us back, and tempting us with the same old thing? Whom shall we trust from that dissonant inner choir?
Sure, we have all heard by now about the inner critique and know what to do with him. But temptation rarely comes wearing a labeled t-shirt and a black hat. Temptation knows how to dress in your best clothing and speak the most reasonable language.
Look how temptation talks to Jesus. It quotes scripture indeed:
Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written,
'He will command his angels concerning you,
to protect you,'and
‘On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'"
Beautiful lines, aren’t they? Some of the most consoling words of scripture, don’t you think? And what is the temptation the devil has in store?
Here is how Jesus rejects him:
Jesus answered him, "It is said,
'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
I remember myself as a young student in the class room at my little village school close to the Polish border. The teacher had just called the demonstrations which had flared up in 1989 across my East German home country a counter revolution. And he said, it is provoked by the churches which gave those “counter revolutionary elements” shelter.
My fellow class mates looked at me, the pastor’s daughter. Do we shelter those elements also?
My Berlin family was marching in those peaceful protests in 1989 while my brother in law was stationed as a soldier near by, anxious if they would get the marching order at any time to shoot down the protests.
But the country I grew up in was not a country of free speech. Still some of the bravest students had asked the teacher anyways: Teacher what is going on with all these demonstrations?
When the teacher was not willing to give an honest answer but just the line we had heard before from state television my heart sank.
Come on, God, I bargained, send some signs here! What about making the lamp dangling from the spartan class room ceiling fall right on the teacher’s desk? Wouldn’t that be an impressive sign that you are on our side?
What about rolling thunder? A lightening flash?
Could you send an angel to get me out of this class room please?
Friends, I am not sure if these first 15 years of my life behind the Iron Curtain were the wilderness. We have all grown up in difficult circumstances one way or another. We all walk through our own wilderness one way or another.
And we all wish and long for a sign from heaven to know our way out.
You have guessed by now that nothing spectacular happened in the class room. Our teacher reminded us to not watch propaganda television from the West and sent us home. I walked home saddened.
Will there ever be a way out of this desert land, I was wondering?
And then, in Fall 1989 the peaceful revolution brought the Iron Curtain down.
No thunder and no lightening, but the spirit of freedom and truth and millions of courageous people coming together in the right time and place.
I do not know what your wilderness is these days, dear friend. If you watch anxiously how the world gives in to the temptation of power and might. If you hesitate to fight, or to know how to fight, for a religion which has lost its heart and soul.
Or if you walk through your own current desert of unanswered questions and suffering this Lenten season.
Sometimes the world we live in feels wild and chaotic. And sometimes the voices in us echo and feed on the chaos, or make their own.
Our preacher today suggested dancing with the chaos as a better response. It is not just to resist the temptation. But to speak back to it.
To dance with it. To engage with it.
Too often we are counseled to fight tempting thoughts by calling them evil and to beat ourselves, or others, up for thinking them.
And it seems that is what happens in this divided world also. We do not speak to the other “evil” side any longer. We see the world in black and white and regard ourselves on the righteous side.
It makes real complexity less frightening. But it does not heal our soul, neither our individual soul nor the soul of our country or this chaotic world.
Dancing in the wilderness, dancing amid the chaos, is the invitation I offer you this Lenten season.
To live and to be alive. To not be tempted by easy solutions or despair.
To dance and to engage and to stay alert and alive.
As I told you at the beginning, homilies are not my thing. And I am not quite sure how to finish this one. Let me try this recommendation:
Look at the voices which come to us from the wilderness, inside and out, engage them, dance with them, and do not let them get away with quoting scripture in vain.
As I said, “Satan” is a rare name we use in our house. But today, in that neighborhood church in that choir I sang loudly and joyfully and hopefully:
Satan, we're gonna tear
Your kingdom down (oh Lord)
Satan, we're gonna tear
Your kingdom down (oh Yes)
You've been building your kingdom
All over this land
Satan, we're gonna tear
Your kingdom down.
The Preachers are gonna preach
Your kingdom down
The Preachers are gonna preach
Your kingdom down (oh yes)
You've been building your kingdom
All over this land
Satan, We're gonna tear
Your kingdom down.
The mothers are gonna pray
Your kingdom down
The Mothers are gonna pray
Your kingdom down
You've been building your kingdom
All in the house of God
Satan, We're gonna tear
Your kingdom down.
Traditional
Let it be so, Amen, dear fellow pilgrim. Let it be so, indeed.
Peace and blessings to your Lenten journey,
Almut
PS: If you can, leave a heart, a word or a line which resonated with you in the comments, so we know you have been here :-)
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About Cloister Notes
A letter for dancing monks and weary pilgrims in the intersection of psychology, philosophy and spirituality. Contemplations on being human to deepen your path, nourish your heart and build wisdom within.
About Almut
Almut Furchert, Dr. phil., Dipl. Psych. is a German American scholar and practitioner, a psychologist turned philosopher turned writer, traveler, photographer, retreat leader and mother of a kindergartener. She has taught and published on authors like Kierkegaard, Buber, Frankl, Yalom, Edith Stein, and Hildegard of Bingen. Almut is also a Benedictine Oblate and lives with her family in a little college town in MN.
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In case you missed it
The latest “Letter to America” with reading recommendations:
The latest (mid) weekly blessing:
One of my latest notes on substack which kinda went viral:
Clear helpful articulate and real....your painful history is food for us here who are facing Satan in our country now
For me, when I am in the wilderness or tempted by Satan, I pick up my guitar and start playing and singing. For a while, I am no longer in the wilderness, and temptation loses its grip. I relate to your singing, Almut. It is a joy for me and seems to put things in perspective.