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The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: they break forth into singing.

+ Isaiah 14:7
 

The word “Lent” comes from an old English word for “lengthen,” and refers to the lengthening days of spring. Anticipating Easter, we prepare with forty days of reflection.

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This season we are offering two options for Lenten Devotionals, one allows for more inward reflection and rest, and the other focuses on caring for the earth from Creation Justice Ministries (recommended by our Environmental Justice Team.) 

Choose one or both options and do what speaks to you this season.

Wendell Berry & The Sabbath Poetry of Lent

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The word “sabbath” comes from an old Hebrew word for “to stop,” and refers to pausing secondary activities (like work) to clear space for the primary ones (like relationships, delight, study, freedom, beauty, restoration – and resurrection). The poet Wendell Berry calls “the idea of sabbath…as rich and demanding an idea as any I know” – and over the decades, Berry has devoted many Sundays to writing “sabbath poems” that explore the depths of this rich, demanding idea.


In this Lenten devotional, biblical texts walk hand-in-hand with Berry’s sabbath vision of the natural world, and together they suggest simple, accessible practices you can try yourself.


All you’ll need is your favorite Bible and Wendell Berry’s This Day: Collected and New Sabbath Poems (the poems may also be found online). Week by week, as the light continues to lengthen, we’ll walk through the woods together toward Easter morning, keeping sabbath as we go.

Creation Justice
Lenten Resources

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The First Church Environmental Justice Team is sharing this Lent Resource.

 

In Lent, we reflect on Christ’s ministry, death, and resurrection. We slow down, and examine our internal spiritual lives as well as the way we live out our Christian faith in the world.

 

Our faith teaches us that humans were put on this earth with the responsibility to be stewards. We also know our individual as well as collective U.S. lifestyles have led to serious harm to God’s good creation.

 

This Lenten reflection and action guide will help individuals take time to learn, reflect, repent, ask God for forgiveness, and take concrete steps to change course.

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