Spiritual accompaniment

“Already, but not yet” – as is said about our experience of the Kingdom of God.

I enjoy the smell of bread rising when I pour water, salt, sugar, an egg, olive oil, bread flour, cinnamon, and yeast into my bread maker and turn it on.  Part way through the bread-making process, I add raisins and sunflower seeds.

Recently, I was enjoying the yeast scent of baking, half-risen loaf of bread.   Forget waiting for the bread to fully rise – I wanted to open the bread maker and experience the yeast-laden bread, impatiently wanting what was only half risen.

My thoughts turned to the Risen Christ.   This year, as we enter the anticipatory season of Lent, we have 2,000 years of Christianity.  As is said, the Kingdom of God is “already [here], but not yet.”

To the degree that we experience God’s love for us and express love toward other people, the Kingdom of God is already here.  To the degree that we experience the frustrations of the human experience, we are reminded that the Kingdom of God is “not yet.”

Until “the not yet” comes, how do we live with our half-experience of the “already, but not yet?”

This Lenten season, we can again commit ourselves to deepening our faith within the “already.” If no yeast has yet been added to start one’s faith journey, yeast can now be added for a start to a faith journey.   For those of us already on a faith journey, we often have at least some inkling of which aspects of our faith experience need to flourish more robustly.  If our bread – faith – is rising but not rising well, Lent (anytime, really) is a good time to add the cinnamon, raisins, and sunflower seeds….

In my life, I actually have a hard time fasting. A problem with self-retraint, self-denial. For several years, I justified this during Lent: “I’m actively doing so many aspects of living a life of faith, who cares if I can’t fast?” We are so skilled at the nuance of making excuses… The fact that I lack the self-restraint to fast – to participate in this form of self-denial – actually indicates that there’s some lesson for me to learn with fasting. I’m certain that the lesson to learn has nothing to do with physical food….. I’m not sure yet what that lesson is, but I’m working toward finding out. I am going to trying fasting during Lent this year.

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist (and is a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). Blogging is sustainable via blog readership (i.e. readers/subscribers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you subscribe to follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them and invite them to subscribe (thank you!).