Hello friends,
This is Mark Glodman,
Also known as Brother Frederick James,
Your friendly neighbourhood monk-in-docs,
Welcoming you to Lent 2026,
Day 8,
SP journey into the wilderness but still held,
Walking towards Easter in the Gospel of John.
As always,
I invite you to begin by finding a comfortable position.
Let your body settle,
Allow your hands to rest wherever they naturally fall.
Gently close your eyes if that feels safe or just soften your gaze.
Take a slow breath in,
Release it without force.
Another breath,
Receiving the air as gift,
Letting it go without needing to manage it.
And one more,
Arriving fully where you are.
Today we enter a moment in the Gospel that can feel quite unsettling.
In John chapter 2,
Verses 13 to 22,
Jesus goes up to the temple and enters the temple.
And there he finds merchants,
Money changers,
Animals being sold,
The machinery of religion humming with activity.
And Jesus makes a whip of cords and overturns tables.
He scatters coins all across the floor.
Take these things out of here,
He says.
Stop making my father's house a marketplace.
But you need to understand Jesus isn't here losing control,
He's not losing his temper.
This is rather the fierce protection of what is sacred.
It's important to notice that Jesus isn't rejecting the temple,
He's restoring it.
He's clearing away what's quietly taken over the space meant for encounter,
Connection with God.
And perhaps this is where the Gospel meets us more personally than we might expect.
Because most of us carry temples within,
Interior structures where we've built carefully over the years our identities,
Our roles,
Beliefs about who we must be,
Ways of organizing life so that it feels predictable,
Manageable,
Safe.
These structures often begin as sincere offerings.
You know,
We start by building them to honor God,
To live faithfully,
To belong.
But over time,
Something subtle can happen.
What once helped approach God can slowly become what hides us from God.
There's moments in every spiritual life when the tables inside begin to tremble,
When something that always felt solid doesn't quite feel so solid anymore.
We lose certainty,
Old self-understandings no longer fit,
Pathways that once felt obvious grow unclear.
And our first instinct is often to stabilize everything as quickly as we possibly can,
To rebuild,
To expand,
To regain control.
But the Gospel reading suggests another possibility.
When the structure shakes,
It's not always heading towards a loss,
Sometimes it's a restoration.
The wilderness teaches us this quietly.
In the wilderness,
There's very little architecture.
There's no walls to lean on,
No ceilings to define the space,
Only sky.
Vast,
Uncontained,
Honest sky.
And the wilderness removes what we constructed so that we can reconsider and rediscover what has always been holding us,
Not beams or stone,
But God.
So today,
Rather than rushing past discomfort,
We practice what we might call holy disorientation.
Not confusion for its own sake,
But the sacred permission to let inner structures tremble when they need to.
And you don't have to manufacture this trembling,
Just simply notice what's already shifting within you.
Gently ask yourself,
What feels less solid in my life right now?
Where have I confused structure with security?
Can I trust God when the familiar rearranges?
And as you sit with these questions,
It's important to try and resist the urge to solve them because you're not asked to rebuild,
At least not today and at least not straight away,
But just to notice and to remain present.
Now bring your awareness to your breath again.
Feel the quiet rhythm.
Rising and falling.
Breath given,
Breath released.
And notice how even your breath is a small act of trust.
You receive what you can't produce and you release what you can't keep,
And yet you are sustained.
It may help to remember that when Jesus cleared the temple,
He didn't abandon it.
His actions made space for truer worship,
For real meeting,
For unguarded presence,
For shaking that wasn't rejection.
A shaking that was actually for protection.
And so if something within you feels unsettled,
If an identity is softening,
If an old way of organizing your life no longer holds,
See if you can imagine Christ standing there.
Not as a destroyer,
As much as a guardian of that sacred center of your life.
This isn't Jesus trying to take something essential from anyone,
But clearing what prevents you from living there freely.
You might even quietly pray,
Lord,
Let what is false fall.
Give me courage not to rush the rebuilding.
Teach me to trust the space that you're making.
Notice your body again.
Is there any place holding tension at the thought of uncertainty?
Perhaps in your jaw,
Your shoulders,
Or your belly.
Let those places soften even slightly.
You are allowed to be held while things shift.
You are allowed to not have all the answers right now.
The gospel tells us that later,
The disciples would remember this moment and understand.
Understanding often comes,
In my experience,
Well after.
The shaking,
Rarely does it come before.
For now,
It's enough to remain close to God in the rearranging.
Close,
Even without clarity.
Hear this gently,
Friend.
Even this shaking is being held.
Not one movement of your life falls outside the steady presence of God.
The same Christ who overturns tables is the Christ who calls your body a temple of the Holy Spirit.
Which means that he's committed to the sanctity of your inner life.
Committed enough to clear what diminishes it,
And tender enough to remain with you as it happens.
Take one deeper breath now.
And as you exhale,
Imagine placing your life again into God's quiet keeping.
Nothing forced,
Nothing grasped,
Just entrusted.
And when you're ready,
Begin to notice the space around you once more.
The surface beneath you,
The sounds nearby carry this steadiness with you.
You don't have to fear every trembling.
Some shakings are actually the mercy of God,
Making room for a truer home within you.
Rest there today.
And may grace,
Peace and love meet you in your resting today and every day.
Amen.
Until tomorrow,
Peace be with you.
