Lent is often associated with wilderness. Sometimes, the most we can say of the wilderness times in our life is that we survived! Yet, as we look at our ancestors in faith, we see a deeper alternative with wilderness. Henri Nouwen compares the desert and wilderness with entering the furnace of transformation.

In “The Way of the Heart,” Nouwen calls Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness the “three compulsions of the world:”

‘There Jesus was tempted to be relevant (“turn stones into loaves”), to be spectacular (“throw yourself down”) and to be powerful (“I will give you all these kingdoms”). There he affirmed God as the only source of his identity (“You must worship the Lord your God and serve him alone.”)’

As a college student, I was engaged in a lot of social activism, while just beginning to learn how to pray.  During my activism work, surrounded by many people working for outer peace in the world, the realization/question came to me: “Why is it that so many people working for peace in the world don’t have peace inside themselves?”

This realization pointed to the both/and of the spiritual journey.  It is a journey of seeking to be peacemakers in the world, as Jesus invites us, while seeing peace as a holistic journey that starts in our own heart.  In the words of Thich Nhat Hanh (from ‘Peace is Every Step’): “Can the peace movement talk in loving speech, showing the way for peace?  I think that will depend on whether the people in the peace movement can ‘be peace… Peace work means, first of all, being peace.”

Sudden storms were a frequent occurrence on the Sea of Galilee. When one such powerful storm hit the boat that Jesus and his disciples were on, “There was someone who was not disturbed by the disturbance. That someone was Jesus. Jesus was in the storm, but the storm wasn’t in Jesus.”[1]

With everything that is going on in our world, sometimes it is okay that we feel disturbed. To be disturbed shows that our heart is still beating; that we still have a conscience. To be disturbed is to pay attention to where there is injustice, so that we might live as Jesus invites us, as peacemakers: