Christians have been traipsing through the stark landscape of Lent for centuries. There among the sharp edges of rock and ever changing topography of shifting sand, they have searched.

What have they looking for?
No treasure chest is buried there; no caves with hidden wonders.

Like the Israelites who wandered in it for 40 years and Jesus who fasted and was tempted in it for 40 days, they search for that "promised land" where God and soul commune.

Tonight we step into that desperate place again. While each of us may have begun the journey a few days ago in the the smoke of burning palms, the flaky taste of death in our Ash Wednesday mouths, tonight we step in together - as a community.

Even though we will all go in together, we are not foolish enough to think that we will be able to travel together. The search we are on is in the deep interior places, hidden in our souls.

We may feel comforted by the felt presence of others. We may be reassured by the occasional voices we here calling out. But we are each going, where no one else may go. It is a place that is no place, a place of blazing fire and darkest night, a place only One other may inhabit.

Let us go together and may we all be changed when it is time to come out of the wilderness.

Lost

Stand still.
The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again, saying
Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

- David Wagoner