Renew a Right Spirit Within Me

Psalm 51

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your loving kindness;

In your great compassion blot out my offenses.

Wash me through and through from my wickedness

And cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.

Do you know that there are two kinds of people? I'm not referring to male and female types, or rich and poor types or other types either. The differences I'm talking about are more basic than even those. The first type of person is the one who goes up to bed at the end of the evening, goes to bed tired after a long day, and then cannot go to sleep. Rather, as the eyes close, the mind revs up; and before you know it, you are off on a whole of host of issues, at breakneck speed.

The other kind of person is my kind of person. I can go to sleep at the drop of an eyelid, no matter what cataclysm or chaos is impending. But between 2 and 3 o'clock in the morning, my eyelids spring open, my mind kicks into gear and I'm off.

In the middle of the night I know myself differently than I do at any other time. For me, for many of us I think, it is a time when we are most aware of ourselves as sinful creatures.

At that time I know myself, my shortcomings, my failings, my inadequacies, my sin. They are ever before. They are spread out before me in an unending parade of night images, as if they were laid out on a smorgasbord table. I can pick and choose one to worry on; or I can take a bite of each offering. Failings as husband, father, provider, priest, a friend, brother, human being, disciple of Jesus or child of God. In the night hours I assault, I afflict myself with my sin. “I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me.”

All of which leads me to say that this season of Lent, may be for some of us the most important season, the most wonderful season in the Christian calendar.

Lent is for us. It is a very personal time that has solely to do with our relationship with God, with ourselves, and with the community in which we live, be it home, neighborhood, church or world.

This is the season when we can be released from whatever it is that has bound us for so long. We can be released from whatever it is that has separated us. We can be released from whatever it is that has isolated us. This is the time we can be released from whatever it is about us that has condemned us in our own sight. We can finally lay the burden down, the burden of guilt that we have laid upon ourselves.

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

and renew a right spirit within me.

Reflection by The Ven. Rick Cluett