Returning to the Basics
From The Pastor’s Desk—
As I mentioned in a recent sermon, Jen and I have begun studying with one of my former martial arts teachers. While the art we are studying (Bajiquan) is new to both of us, it has many similarities to the other style I practiced with our teacher Jonas (Chen style Taijiquan). As such, I have a unique experience: like Jen, I am learning these movements for the first time. At the same time, because of the similarities between styles, I have the opportunity to return to the common foundational basics for the first time in nearly 2 decades.
Another former Taijiquan teacher, David Shaver, was fond of saying: learn things well before moving on to the next; otherwise, when will you have time to come back and relearn what has already been taught? A few years ago, I had the chance to bring Jen to World Taiji Day, where she had the opportunity to meet both David and Jonas. That day, we took an introductory workshop with David, and I was struck by how many of the lessons I had learned from David had been integrated into my martial arts practice across styles and years.
In so many ways, these opportunities to relearn basics with 2 of my teachers has felt like reclaiming and recentering parts of my past, and making them part of my present. This has been on my mind often as we find ourselves in the season of Lent. Lent is, for each one of us, to return to our own origins of faith; to set aside the many distractions that compete for our attention, and return to our basics. Whether we choose to give something up for Lent, to devote ourselves to prayer or fasting or almsgiving, we are choosing to enter more deeply into this season of preparation and reconciliation.
Like my experiences returning to the basics of my martial arts, my prayer for each of you during this Lent is that you will find how deeply the foundations of your faith are woven through your lives. In a similar fashion, I pray that a return to the basics with 10 or 20 or 30 years of practice will provide an opportunity to see something new in what has long seemed rote or unworthy of consideration.
In martial arts, we often talk about progress being like a spiral. As we navigate our practice we find ourselves in approximately the same location, over and over, but at a higher (or deeper) level. Lent is a yearly opportunity to ask ourselves where we are, how we have progressed, and where we are still challenged. As we journey through these 40 days, may we each take the opportunity to, as Elder Ephraim teaches: compel yourselves; say the prayer; stop idle talk; close your mouths to criticism; place doors and locks against unnecessary words. Time passes and does not come back; woe to us if time goes by without spiritual profit.
—Pastor Jon
