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View from the Pew
Mary Adamski
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CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARBULLETIN.COM
Nobuko Miyake-Stoner, clockwise from left, June Shimokawa, Robert Miyake-Stoner, David Braaten and Helen Iwatani meditated while walking a labyrinth at Harris United Methodist Church on Wednesday. The pattern allows individuals to reflect on Lent.
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The fast track to grace goes through Lent
Local churches help followers learn that sacrifice brings out the important things in life
Giving up candy for Lent is a cliché. For children it's promoted as an introduction to the concept of sacrifice. It's practice for fasting on a larger scale. A lot of adults continue with variations on that theme, a simple fix that could benefit the waistline as well as the soul.
Christian churches around town are offering more adult choices for people making the journey toward Easter. There's many a chance to take a little break from the multitasking, wheel-spinning, appointment-keeping hullabaloo of daily life to reflect on what Lent and Easter are all about.
"Come fill our hearts with your peace," the Wednesday noontime group at Harris United Methodist Church sang like a mantra. The roar of traffic outside underscored what a sanctuary really is, a quiet haven from the material world to contemplate the divine.
"It becomes clear that for Jesus, peace is not simply harmony or equilibrium. Peace is not only absence of war," said June Shimokawa, using the writing of Henri Nouwen for her reflection on the Beatitudes. "Peace is 'shalom,' the well-being of mind, heart and body, individually and communally. It can exist in the midst of a war-torn world, even in the midst of unresolved problems and increasing human conflicts."
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A symbolic nail from Christ's cross is fashioned for the Lenten Season.
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Participants extended their midday meditation by walking the labyrinth, a pattern of spirals that symbolizes a journey to your center and back out into the world. It will be open again for the March 12 noontime service. The focus will be on music at the noon retreat.
The emphasis is on music each Wednesday noon at Kawaiaha'o Church. With lively jazz by pianist Betty Loo Taylor and a rotating lineup of musicians, it can be just a concert. Pastors Curtis Kekuna and Jon Pak present a sound bite of inspirational reflections for people who want to make it more. Either way, being immersed in cool music inside the thick coral walls that muffle the noisy outside world is a spiritual experience. It will continue though March 19.
Two other downtown churches -- St. Andrew's Episcopal Cathedral and Our Lady of Peace Catholic Cathedral -- have daily noontime services.
People gather at 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays for Taize prayer around the cross at the Catholic Campus Center at the University of Hawaii. The candlelight service of prayers, chanting and scriptural readings patterned on practices of the ecumenical Taize monastic community in France has become popular in Protestant and Catholic churches. There's also a daily Mass at noon at the chapel at the end of East-West Road where the holy-water font stands empty with a note that "Lent reminds us of our baptism and we look forward to it" as the celebration of Christ's resurrection approaches.
The rector of a Kailua church urged people to get a prayer partner just as they would have a walking or swimming partner. The Rev. Cass Bailey of St. Christopher's Episcopal Church wrote in the monthly newsletter, "I invite, challenge, beg, plead -- whatever it takes -- with you to commit to a discipline of prayer this Lent. I also suggest you do it with someone who can support you and hold you accountable."
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An Ash Wednesday prayer card is shown.
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Jesus told his followers how to pray in the Gospel of Matthew. "Find a quiet, secluded place so you won't be tempted to role-play before God," was the contemporary translation from "The Message" Bible read by students at the Chaminade University kickoff for Lent on Ash Wednesday. "Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace."
And, it continues, "When you practice some appetite-denying discipline to better concentrate on God, don't make a production out of it. God doesn't require attention-getting devices. He won't overlook what you are doing; he'll reward you well."
The Rev. Ken Templin told the Chaminade crowd: "Don't give something up, but take something up.
"Fast from anger and feast on patience.
"Fast from gossip and feast on affirmation.
"Fast from complaining and feast on appreciation," said the campus minister, borrowing wisdom from an inspirational Web page, bustedhalo.com.
"Let us fast from:
» Having to have the last word.
» Taking those who love me for granted.
» Worrying about things I can't change or control.
» Patronizing people who work for or with me.
» Carrying grudges.
» Nagging, complaining.
» Feeling sorry for myself.
» Negative humor and sarcasm.
» TV watching.
» Spending money, nothing superfluous, no shoes, no clothes."
Whoa! Compared to that, giving up chocolate is a piece of cake.