Ash Wednesday is today. As I prepare for Lent, I have been thinking of Pope Francis asking us to “fast from indifference to our neighbor” and I would add apathy toward world events. Following this advice, I would like to encourage you to try your own Lenten Diary. This need not be a difficult exercise, but it will be helpful if you have a notebook.
As you read a morning newspaper, read Our Daily Bread, go online, or watch the morning news on television. Take a few minutes to jot a note in your notebook. Write whatever comes to mind as you think about the person featured in the story. Then offer a simple prayer.
Let me give an example. Our Daily Bread for Feb. 27, 2017 features Plato’s story of the ring of invisibility. The author of the devotion takes the story in a different direction than Plato does. In Plato’s version of the story the theme is happiness. Would you be happier if you had a ring of invisibility and you could do whatever you wanted to without ever being discovered? That’s an interesting question.
Since you are not likely to pull out your copy of Plato’s Dialogues, I’ll tell you how he answers the question. At first it seems like the person with the magic ring would be the happiest person in the world. If you had such a ring you would be able to steal the winning lottery ticket or do whatever you wished, and still keep a stellar reputation in your community.
However, at the end of the discussion Plato concludes that the person who owned such a ring would actually become the unhappiest person in the world because he or she would have a divided heart. The owner of the ring would have to live with the knowledge that they never knew who he or she was. Aristotle, another Greek philosopher, said that to know thyself is the beginning of wisdom. Wisdom is the one thing the person with the magic ring would never have.
A prayer for today: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me” (Ps.51:10).
David