Lent 2021
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Daily Reflections
A diverse group of writers from across our conference share their thoughts on Isaiah 58:11.
Day 15 – Rev. Beth Hood
Is virtual worship really worship? It is a question that has been posed by many over the last several months. It’s a natural question for those who have gotten up, put on their best attire, and driven to church on Sunday mornings their entire lives. Parishioners and pastors alike have wondered. After all, we call…
Day 14 – Kennedy Gray
The Covid pandemic, racial tension, and political division provide us much to reflect on during this Lent season. For many of us, this may feel like a dry place as we witness death and despair on such a large scale. The message found in Isaiah 58:11 is one of assurance in the presence, protection, and…
Day 13 – Rev. Tim Catlett
Even before “COVID-19” and “global pandemic” became part of our everyday conversation, my family’s 2020 was disrupted. In January, my 12-year-old son broke both bones in his right arm while playing goalkeeper during a soccer scrimmage. The breaks required surgery during which titanium rods were inserted into his arm to stabilize the bones. The healing…
Day 12 – Rev. Mattheue Locklear
Reading Isaiah 58:11 reminds me of the nursery rhyme:Mary, Mary, quite contrary,How does your garden grow?With silverbells and cockle shellsAll in a row. I grew up in rural Maxton, North Carolina, during the 1980s. We did not see families like ours on television, and I felt our family must be inferior to the “normal” families…
Day 11 – Rev. Sung Moy
In January of 2015, I slipped on black ice and broke the tibia and fibula in my right leg. Apparently, my tibia had been shattered, and I required a lot of hardware. When I returned to the doctor in the first few months, he said that I was healing nicely. It was hard to be…
Day 10 – Sara Cortes
Since I was a little girl, I’ve never been able to keep a plant alive, let alone a garden! A couple of years ago, my daughter brought a gift to me from school. It was this little and fragile flower planted in a plastic cup. I knew I had to pay extra attention to this…
Day 9 – Rev. Rhonda Jordan
Summers in Franklin County, North Carolina, were hot and dry. The hotter the weather, the more parched the land. The sweltering heat covered us like a heavy wool blanket in August, smothering us, changing the landscape and peoples’ dispositions from green to brown. Even people of faith became concerned about their crops and gardens. As a child, I heard the…
Day 8 – Rev. Jon Strother
Before today’s reading was ours to ponder, it was offered to a people who had watched their nation be ripped apart; first from within, and then oppressed from without. “One nation under God,” became divisible. We know what that looks like, don’t we? We witnessed it right here – 160 years ago – North and…
Day 7 – Emily Lain
For the last 5 years, I have lived close enough to walk to the ocean in about 5 minutes. When you step outside, the air smells salty and kind of fishy. From the parsonage porch, when it’s hushed out, you can hear the waves. And while it’s good to be close to the ocean, it’s…
Day 6 – Rev. Robin Jones
My mind takes me back to the winter of 2004. My husband, Eric Todd, was preparing to retire out of the North Carolina Army National Guard after 30 years of service, our son was twelve years old, and life was going great. But soon, a massive number of troops were to begin to deploy for…
Day 5 – Rev. John Gumbo
Early morning in May 1963, as the sun was rising and the birds of the forest were singing songs of praise, in a small thatched mud house in Africa, a baby boy was born; weak and sick with no hope to survive. His mother, Victoria, a strong believer in God, told the priest to come…
Day 4 – Rev. Carolyn Cummings-Woriax
Joyfully, as we prepare for the Lenten Season, Isaiah’s action words – guide, satisfy, and strengthen – remind us of God’s faithfulness. Psalm 23 also demonstrates God’s continual faithfulness. We were excited to arrive at the Grand Canyon National Park. While hiking the trail down to the Colorado River, many “oohs” and “aahs” were voiced…
Day 3 – Rev. Alma Tinoco-Ruiz
God created a beautiful, watered garden that can produce all we need to satisfy our needs. Yet, for most of us, it is not enough. We live in a consumerist society where many are not satisfied with the springs of water that God continues creating within us, much less with what God’s garden produces. Our…
Day 2 – Rev. Edgar De Jesus
Summers in my homeland, the Philippines, are really hot and humid with temperatures sometimes rising as high as 100°F. During this season, there is not much rain and all there was, was heat— creating parched places and cracking dry grounds. As a result, crops are destroyed, animals die, and livelihoods devastated. This is a harsh…
Day 1 – Bishop Hope Morgan Ward
Today is a day to bow together in humility before God. We are human, limited, temporary. We will come and we will go. We will sleep and we will wake. We will live and we will die. As the pandemic rages for a second Lent, we acknowledge our mortality as we receive the gift of ashes. In his…