A Dreary Day

Yesterday my husband and I started what seemed to be a promising week with a nice, relaxing stroll on the towpath on our day off. We did some driving around, exploring towns we'd heard of but not yet had chance to see, and ventured home. He watched TV, and I finished a quit I'm making for my sister-in-law's soon to arrive daughter (Valentines Day due date!).

Our casual day was interrupted when I noticed a glow across the way in the woods. Now, a glow doesn't always mean anything major, nor would this one have been all that alarming were it not that we just couldn't quite tell if it (we decided it must indeed be a fire) was on camp property or not. Long story short (and one night-hike by the light of a full moon later), it was not on camp property, but was a house completely destroyed by fire. The man who lived there got out, which is the best news of all, but the marks of the fire remain. We rode over to see the remains with Scott, our camp maintenance director, who was one of the firefighters who responded. I keep trying to convince Chris we should get a scanner, but he seems content to know Scott has one and would call us if anything came up. There really is nothing left.

I've been thinking of this, and of ashes, as I work on some material for Lent this year. There never seems to be quite enough time to work the details of Lent out, but I'm giving it a good hard try this year, so we'll see.

I've also been struck by the juxtaposition of change and status quo in my own life as Lent approaches. While this season is a "fast," albeit reflective time in the church year, my own life seems to be in a bit of a standstill season. Or perhaps I've merely adapted to the pace of change where I am right now so that it hardly seems noteworthy. I don't know. But lately I've been thinking of an idea my preaching professor used often in describing the sermon-prep process: fallow ground. He used this to explain that when you prepare a sermon, you can just be go, go, go. You've got to make room for quiet, calm, and barrenness so that God can take hold of your preparations and really turn it into something.

So that's my latest line of reflection. Aside from sermon prep, do we also face times of fallow ground in our lives? Times when our great desire to be useful and hectic and such are frustrated? Are these necessary times for reflection or indications of times to find new fields? And what if there seems to be only fallow ground all around? I don't know. What do you think?