The season of Lent is filled with promise. That is, Lent comes to us each year with fertile possibilities for spiritual growth and creative transformation. Not only Christians, but people of all faiths or no faith have come to recognize the deep wisdom of the season.

During Lent, we especially remember the wisdom of living-by-dying — letting go of attachments to things that cannot last. Many of these finite things are inside us: the compulsion to be needed, to receive approval, to control our destinies, to succeed, to avoid suffering, to isolate ourselves from one another, and to fear the future. The new life that arises through the process of letting go may not always be “happy” by conventional standards, but it is filled with harmony, intensity, love, delight, and strength of beauty. As Jesus spoke of the "kernel of wheat," which must fall to the ground and die for new life to spring forth, so living-by-dying is the seed of Easter hidden within Lent.

In this e-course, first offered during Lent 2018, Jay McDaniel and Patricia Adams Farmer present 20 inspiring offerings for Lent from the standpoint of process thought. They write and teach with a vision of the universe as a network of creativity and inter-becoming; and of God as relational, loving, present with us in the darkness, and always luring us towards fresh forms of new life.

The nine promises to be pondered and practiced during this course are:

  • inter-becoming
  • zest for life
  • forgiveness
  • imagination
  • creative lamentation
  • kindness
  • courage
  • love of beauty
  • hope

You will receive sessions on the schedule that you choose. Thoughtful insights, soul-nourishing stories, and spiritual practices will accompany your Lenten journey. You will be invited to keep a journal with your reflections about what you are learning.

Jay McDaniel is the Willis Holmes Professor of Religious Studies at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas, the author of several books, and editor of the website Open Horizons (openhorizons.org). Patricia Adams Farmer is the minister of Millersburg Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Millersburg, Missouri, and author of several books (patriciaadamsfarmer.com). Both are active in the worldwide community of process thought and share a blog, "Process Musings," here at Spirituality & Practice.

We hope that you will join us to bring the promises of Lent alive in your own experience.

(6 CEHs for Chaplains available.) To register for this e-course, click on the "Subscribe to E-Course" button below.

Available On-Demand
(choose your own start date and frequency)

$65.00

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