The icon – The Invitation – is in church for the duration of Lent.
Jesus walks into the wilderness his hand reaching back for you to come join him, where those things that you think are cracks and brokenness can be beautified.
I am currently reading ‘The Sound of Life’s Unspeakable Beauty’, it is a beautiful book any time but especially for Lent. It says of itself, and it is true in my reading so far:
“This is a beautiful book. This word “beauty,” in the Japanese definition, requires sacrifice. The sacrifice of death to preserve honour or the natural process of decay is beatified.”
Going into the wilderness is a place not were we decay but were we can be beautified. When all distractions, all temptations, all outside influences are no longer assailing our senses, we get the chance to look at ourselves and to listen to what God is saying to us and for us.
So let us journey into the wilderness not in dour West of Scotland attitude, but in the joy of having 40 days with God removed from all other distractions, where we too will be attended to by the angels.
(I am sure there will be more about the book at another time.)