Osler's Razor

It's Lent. In the past few years, Lent for me has become deep and pure and real; something it never was before. I can't wholly explain it. It's not just being busy with "Lent-y" things, though I am. For example, here is some of what I am doing this Lent (all these events are open to the public):

Thursday, Feb. 28: Talk at Drinking Liberally, 7 pm, 331 Club, Minneapolis

Sunday, March 3: Talk at St. Stephens Episcopal, Edina, 10 AM

Sunday, March 17: Sermon at Wren Chapel, College of William and Mary, 11 AM

Tuesday, March 26: Trial of Jesus, St. John's Episcopal, Boulder, Colorado

Thursday, March 28: Trial of Jesus, First Baptist Church, Austin, Texas

Here's the thing: I'm confident that there will be some remarkable moment in all of this. I just don't know what it will be, or when. That's because I've learned that Lent is a Holy Spirit time, where we engage with a part of God that is mysterious and larger than us, the Holy Spirit that Jesus promised would be with us once he was gone.

This patience to wait and see, expectantly, is something I have learned late in life. Too often, I have tried to create meaning through force of will, the way I try to create an article or a change in the law, but the Holy Spirit doesn't work like that.

In a much lesser but analogous way, it's similar to the peace I have made with baseball. Over the course of my life, I have tried to understand everything about my favorite team, swung over to apathy, and traversed everything in between, yet baseball is still a mystery. I enjoy it though, and here is why: I have learned to wait and watch for The Moment-- that one moment that will distinguish that game from all of the others in what is by its nature a ponderous and nuanced sport. Sometimes it will be something on the field, or in the stands, even outside the stadium altogether.

A year or so ago, I was at a Twins game. They were, and are, terrible at baseball. They have lost almost 100 games each of the past few years, and it is looking pretty grim for 2013. Still, that night, something happened-- they won on a walk-off homer by a .168 hitter. That little miracle, though, wasn't The Moment. In fact, The Moment came about three seconds later.

In my row of the stands was a woman in her 40's who had been watching the game with casual interest. When the baseball went over the wall she was transformed. She leapt to her feet, put her two hands directly over her head in fists turned perpendicular to the field, and lifted her right leg, so her knee was bent and the right foot was carefully set next to her left knee. She leaned back, smiled broadly and yelled. It was a cheerleader pose, no doubt carefully learned at a dusty hot summer camp 30-some years before, and in that burst of elation it had come out, fully formed and perfect. That was it; The Moment.

So it will be, though greater in meaning and import, in this time before Easter, and I will wait for it with an open heart and hard work. I hope all of you can come share some of it with me.