This Lenten season, our church is reading Walking in the Wilderness: Seeking God During Lent by Beth A. Richardson. I appreciate many things about this book, but my favorite component is the invitation to engage in a different spiritual practice each week. Introduced on Sundays, we are incorporating the practices into our worship and study each Sunday and during the week following. 

The practice for the first Sunday of Lent was: being present. This week I have been intentional about being present as often as possible. 

I have practiced sitting and meditating. I have gotten distracted while sitting a meditating. I have taken walks and noticed the changing of the seasons, tiny leaves sprouting on trees, the early arrival of the bluebonnets in central Texas. I have been present and aware of my body and its cues, from noticing sore muscles from my workout to letting exhaustion lead to a nap instead of a cup of coffee.

This week, I was serving on the Board of Ordained Ministry for my Annual Conference. We met at the camp where I attended youth retreats as a teen and clergy events throughout my ministry. It is the same camp where my interviews for my ordination process were held. It was a gift to be there, to be present to what I am experiencing in my spiritual life now, while reflecting on where I have come from. It was a joy to pray with a candidate the night before her interviews, laying hands on her and interceding for her. I think that prayer time was when I was most present this week.  

I have noticed that the busier my schedule is on a given day, the more likely I am to try to do two things at once. The result is that I am not entirely present to anything or anyone. I noticed this when I was placing a grocery order on my phone while at the playground with my daughter. I noticed it again when I was talking on the phone while folding laundry. 

In my experience of practicing being present this week, I have realized that presence means being fully engaged in where I am, in what I am doing, and with the people I am with. Practicing presence is not as simple as “put the phone away,” although that can certainly help. I can get lost in my mind just as easily as in something I am looking at or holding. Presence is about being. In Beth A. Richardson’s words, “If we are truly in the present moment, we are open to the movement of the Holy One. We become a channel for the spirit’s promptings in us.” May we be present, and may it be so.