March 30/Third Saturday of Lent For you are not pleased with sacrifices; should I offer a burnt offering, you would not accept it.My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit; a heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn. ~ Ps 51.18-19 To the modern sensibility, sacrifices and burnt offerings seem impossibly ancient and decidedly obsolete. Modern…
Song 21: Stranger Danger
March 29/Third Friday of Lent There shall be no strange god among you; you shall not bow down to a foreign god. ~ Ps 81.9 One of the first lessons we learn as we grow up, and a lesson we certainly impart to our children, is this: Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t answer the door if you don’t recognize the…
Song 20: Listen Up!
March 28/Third Thursday of Lent Oh, if today you would listen to his voice. ~ Ps 95.7 After many years of marriage and motherhood, I have learned to identify the precise moment in a conversation when one of my children, or my husband, starts to tune out my well-meaning advice. A slight turn of the head, an infinitesimal glazing of…
Song 19: Get Up and Bar the Door
March 27/Third Wednesday of Lent For he has strengthened the bars of your gates. ~ Ps 147.13 Most of us are not very good at setting boundaries in our lives. We fail to draw solid lines between work and family life, checking e-mails at bedtime, taking “important” calls during dinner, and bringing work home on the weekends. Those who are…
Song 18: Past Performance
March 26/Third Tuesday of Lent Be mindful of your mercy, O Lord, and of your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. ~ Ps 25.6 An actress is only as good as her last role. One successful litigation does not necessarily ensure the next. Asset management firms are required by the Securities and Exchange Commission to say…
Song 17: Sit. Stay.
March 25/Third Monday of LentFeast of the Annunciation Sacrifice and offering you do not delight in, but you have dug out my ears.To do your will, O God, I delight in; your teaching is in the midst of my belly. ~ Ps 40.7, 9* Obedience — how it goes against the human grain. We no sooner construct a set of…
Song 16: Ain’t No Mountain High Enough
March 23/Second Saturday of Lent For as the heavens are high above the earth, so surpassing is his kindness toward those who fear him.As far as the east is from the west, so far has he put our transgressions from us. ~ Ps 103.11-12 Forgiveness is out of fashion. It is seen in many quarters as a sign of weakness.…
Song 15: How Firm a Foundation
March 22/Second Friday of Lent When the LORD called down a famine on the land and ruined the crop that sustained them, He sent a man before them, Joseph, sold as a slave. ~ Ps 105.16-17 A non-profit group I work with refers often to its founder, a pioneering businesswoman and formidable preservationist, whose never-say-die mentality, scrappy determination, and tireless…
Song 14: Dust in the Wind
March 21/Second Thursday of Lent They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither.Not so the wicked, not so; they are like chaff which the wind drives away. For the Lord watches over the way of the just, but the way of the wicked vanishes. ~ Ps…
Song 13: Prowlers
March 20/Second Wednesday of Lent For I hear the whispering of many—terror all around!— as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life.But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, “You are my God.” ~ Ps 31.13-14 When at the gym, I occasionally toggle between MSNBC and Fox News, which happen to be abutting (not…