I write you from Brunswick Georgia where I am attending the Georgia Sheriffs' Association Chaplaincy training. I hope Lent is going well for you. Our Lenten series started off talking about Jesus' temptations by the devil in the wilderness. The second session was "Night Questions" with Nicodemus, and the third will be Jesus' long conversation with the theological woman at the well. Then two more sessions. I hope you can join us in conversation and good soup at one or more of the remaining three sessions.

The Gospel for today's Morning Prayer is from John. Jesus asks a man who's been sick for 38 years if he wants to be made well. The man doesn't say yes but instead gives his scenario of why he is not well. He says that he comes and lies by the pool, that supposedly has healing qualities, but is never able to get in because no one is there to help him. After 38 years the man and his disease are one.

After spending time with ourselves and getting comfortable or at least agreeable with ourselves and our state of being, the question before us is, do we really want to change or have we grown comfortable with who we are? I'm not talking of the physical but of the spiritual. Sometimes our only way forward appears to be that we just accept our status or condition. We begin to think that there is no way to change. For the man at the pool, the healing event happened anyway despite his thoughts. Jesus doesn't berate him for having waited so long or doesn't scoff at him for his acceptance of what he thought wasn't changeable. Jesus just heals the man. In our complacency about healing, about being made whole, about change, may Jesus do the same for us out of his mercy and love for us, even when we are hesitant or unsure of what we need and of the way forward.