When my friend and former classmate, Karen Weiss, sent me this information today, I knew I had to share it.
Lent is coming. This year the season of Lent begins soon, on March 9 and continues for 46 days until Easter Day. As Karen says, it offers us “an excellent time to clear away the clutter and delve into our faith. This devotional is designed to stretch and encourage you to look at life in a unique way through the eyes of saints that have walked before us. With the assistance of twelve different devotional classics, we can discover God in a new, relational way and grow stronger in our faith.”
I highly encourage you to take time this season to regularly reflect on the themes of Lent, especially in conjunction with a friend, family member, or small group. Make lenten reflection part of your spiritual journey this year. Explore this guidebook, or another devotional guide, that will take you deeper in your walk of faith. And please, keep me updated!
Karen’s devotional is only $7.50!
Yes, I know what you’re thinking, “AWESOME Valentine’s Day gift!” (Or you JUST thought that, in the last 2 seconds.)
BUT-JUST WAIT! As a special treat, this “Freebie February”, the first 25 people who respond in the comment section, will get a promo code for an additional $2 off. WHAT? Only $5.50? Moly Hoses! Yes, folks, that’s how I roll. Happy February, ya’ll!
Self Examination. (Also called Examen: a formal examination of the soul or conscience by cooperating with the Holy Spirit.) This is, to me, one of the most powerful and compelling reasons to use a labyrinth along with the practice of prayer. It propels us to a sacred place (in the heart) take pause, reflect, and hear from the Lord.
It’s been used and enjoyed in Christianity for many hundreds of years.
Do you even remember what your New Years resolution was? By now, if you made a New Year’s resolution, the chances are that you, and more than half of the people who made them, have failed to keep it. The New Year provides us with a natural time of self-reflection, and plenty of us decide to do things differently. It’s time for a “do-over”.
This can be a good time of the year to re-reflect, now that the thrill of getting the New Year on the right foot has sort of washed up on the shores of your life…like….um..like a corpse, right?
You can make a labyrinth for yourself, or your group, out of snow, masking tape, sand, bricks, stones, and string, among other things.
To visit a permanent labyrinth, near you, take a look at this site which is a world wide directory to find one.
Don’t forget this most important point: At the center of the Prayer Labyrinth, we are confronted, inescapably with the work of Christ. We must attend to the spiritual magnitude of the cross, and its tangible impact on the whole of our lives.
The outdoor Labyrinth of Advent Lutheran Church
I hope you would like to spend an hour or a day in prayer with God, or gather with your family, or a few friends and travel to a labyrinth for a time of worship, prayer, Scripture reading, and self-examination with our faithful guide, the Holy Spirit.
I challenge you to include a prayer labyrinth soon in your spiritual practice, and literally walk with God.
Want to make your own? How to draw your own prayer labyrinth, here.
Have you have used a prayer labyrinth? If so, what was your experience. If not, would you like to? (Why or why not)
OKAY! I’m going to try to point everyone in the right direction…which incidentally is something a certain forefather of mine did NOT do.
Click to read more about my great (x20+) grandpa, Chris.
So, I’m reading my blog analytics, and I’m confronted with an old foe…of sorts. It seemed a google search for some gastric-related product sent someone to my blog. Welcome to my whole life. My maiden name (and pen name) Colón is pronounced (basically) like this: CO – lone. (The other joke was, “What’s that smell? Is it Lisa Colón? Like eau de cologne…SO ingenious, right?)
Surprisingly…ahem…the word colon is well, confusing for a lot of people, and search engines, too.
Let’s be clear, the name Colón is not the same as the word used for a punctuation mark, or a semi-punctuation mark, or a main part of the large intestine. Oh, but WHAT a funny joke…especially at the doctor’s office. HA. HA. HA. Yeh, whatever. Nurses think they are endlessly funny, believe me.
You may have never heard of the Colón surname, at all, unless you are familiar with a certain Right Tackle football player and once Pittsburgh Steeler: Willie Colón (click for wiki).
We have an uncanny resemblance to each other, I KNOW.
Or you are particularly into Salsa music, and know Willie Colón, the Puerto Rican salsa music icon; a Nuyoricansalsa musician, and trombonist.
Salsa musician Willie Colón
If you are not familiar with Spain, Spanish, Spanish countries, or Central and South American countries, you are in new territory for this nomenclature.
Or!
You haven’t made the connection with all sorts of Columbian words (yes, the word Columbian relates to the “discoverer”..of a place where people already were…of the Americas…. Amerigo Vespucci…er…wait… I mean… “Christopher Columbus”.)
Those related words are Colonize, Colony, Colonel, Colonial, et cetera. Yes. They all originate with Cristóbal Colón, the Spanish name of Christopher Columbus.
Okay, now to clear it up, using the dictionary.
The word “colon” (pronounced COLE-on) which is NOT my name is 1 of 2 things:
colon 1 |ˈkōlən|
noun
a punctuation mark ( : ) indicating
• that a writer is introducing a quotation or a list of items.
• that a writer is separating two clauses of which the second expands or illustrates the first.
• a statement of proportion between two numbers : a ratio of 10:1.
• the separation of hours from minutes (and minutes from seconds) in a statement of time given in numbers : 4:30 p.m.
• the number of the chapter and verse respectively in biblical references : Exodus 3:2.
ORIGIN mid 16th cent. (as a term in rhetoric denoting a section of a complex sentence, or a pause before it): via Latin from Greek kōlon ‘limb, clause.’ colon 2
noun Anatomy
the main part of the large intestine, which passes from the cecum to the rectum and absorbs water and electrolytes from food that has remained undigested. Its parts are called the ascending, transverse, descending, and sigmoid colon.
ORIGIN late Middle English : via Latin from Greek kolon.
My name is Colón, which is different.
Colón |kəˈlōn|
the chief port of Panama, at the Caribbean Sea end of the Panama Canal; pop. 140,900. colón |kəˈlōn|
noun ( pl. -lones |-ˈlōˌnās|)
the basic monetary unit of Costa Rica and El Salvador, equal to 100 centimos in Costa Rica and 100 centavos in El Salvador.
ORIGIN from Cristóbal Colón, the Spanish name of Christopher Columbus (see Columbus 2 ).
Why do I continue to use a name that is confusing?
Part of it is that I’m just silly. And, well, my married name is DeLay. It’s French, and poses its own set of problems. Delay. Yes, perhaps I’m the repeated victim of circumstance. This is especially true if colon and delay are put together. Ya know?
And fittingly, this post has constipation…
But, it’s all so you can sit down, relax, and Wait…Wait…wait…
It’s all coming out better now in the end.
So, yeh, if you need a colon cleanser…as you can see, I’m here for you (in a sense).
It’s not so much a matter of who we are, but who we belong to.
This poem was written by a man who would soon die at the hands of his Nazi captors. At the end of his life, he could question who he was, and who he had been, but his resolution to all of that rests in Theological principle, in worldview.
