Sixth Wednesday of Lent:
Locating Treasures

• Treasures in Heaven

21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

We come to the last of the "disciplines" of Matthew 6 that we started with on Ash Wednesday. At first glance this may not look like a discipline like prayer or fasting or even giving to the poor. In reality, of course, it is more a way of looking at the world that may even be the underpinning of the other disciplines and the result of them. The question this raises for me has to do with how do I discipline myself to do my treasure hunting (and treasure storing) in the right arena.

Somewhere along the line I have a hunch that we come to a realization that what we have been struggling, fighting, working, and wrestling for may in the end not be all we thought it should or could be. We know deep down in some recesses of the soul or spirit that we are a much poorer and needy people than we care to admit. We discover that we need more.

Then try to break your heart from the treasures that we have sought to amass. Try to break the soul free from the bondage to the important or busy-ness. Try to let the spirit be lifted by the simple and mundane that we have scorned.

The result of such effort though will be to set our lives into a new level of faith, a new depth of trust, new possibilities of life.

The old Shaker hymn comes to mind:

'Tis the gift to be simple,
'tis the gift to be free,
'tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
It will be in the valley of love and delight.

Refrain:
When true simplicity is gained,
To bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed.
To turn, turn will be our delight,
'Til by turning, turning we come round right

'Tis the gift to be loved and that love to return,
'Tis the gift to be taught and a richer gift to learn,
And when we expect of others what we try to live each day,
Then we'll all live together and we'll all learn to say,

'Tis the gift to have friends and a true friend to be,
'Tis the gift to think of others not to only think of "me",
And when we hear what others really think and really feel,
Then we'll all live together with a love that is real.

Refrain:
When true simplicity is gained,
To bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed.
To turn, turn will be our delight,
'Til by turning, turning we come round right

As we near the end of Lent, our turning, turning will come 'round once again to the center and source of our fauth.