Time for a Spiritual Check Up

And so the corrections pile up too: I usually just list the corrections and then add them all up and take them off en mass: a few cents too much here, a check I forgot to record, a service fee I never put down, maybe a deposit I forgot to enter. I know, this probably sounds like the dark ages to those (like my daughter) who do everything online or don't get returned checks. No matter how you do your banking, most people still need some system of regular checking to see if their records agree with the bank's.

And somehow for me, the plusses never equal the minuses. I always come up short-with more money to subtract from my account than add in. There are always things to fix in my checkbook.

For those of the Christian faith, the season of Lent, which began February 13, is kind of like one marathon session of "reconciling the checkbook." It is a time to examine your life, look at your minuses and fix them. It might even be a time to assess where your family is in its religious training.

Lent is a time to reconcile with others and with God. I was intrigued when the Catholic Church began calling their sessions of confession with a priest, "reconciliation" instead of "confession." I guess reconciliation is a good word for spiritual accounting as well as financial bookkeeping.

Then it hit me: even though I always end up with more minuses than plusses in my spiritual and emotional life, God's grace covers my minuses. I may not measure up, but God gives me a new checking account every day to begin afresh and says: "I don't keep old accounts. Enjoy, and don't mess up today!"

To some young people, faith may seem as outdated as the concept of keeping a paper checkbook. Sometimes we as parents are at fault. I was reading one woman's account of trying to talk to her 12-year-old daughter about the spiritual message that she, the mother, was hearing in the song they were listening to. Her daughter was simply not interested. Then her mother realized that she had not instilled enough faith and religious teachings in her daughter for the conversation to have any meaning.

How sad. Of course, parents can go the other way, too, pushing their children to go through the motions of religion, with the result of a child rebelling against that. Neither course is good.

It is never too late for either situation: even though we may not have taught our children as well as we should have, or if we pushed them more than we should have, we can stand back, examine our approach, and begin to change.

Maybe we can use this season of Lent, not only as a chance to pause and reflect on our own shortcomings and make amends, but as a time to take inventory of how we are teaching our children the facts and stories from our faith heritage. This can take on many facets: a spiritual check up can help us reflect on whether we are living out our beliefs in front of our children, or whether they hear one thing and see another.

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Contributed by Melodie Davis from her weekly columnANOTHER WAY (http://www.thirdway.com/aw/).For information on using Another Way in a local newspaper, contact:ANOTHER WAY, 1251 Virginia Ave., Harrisonburg, VA 22801-2497; or call1-800-999-3534; fax at 540-434-5556; or email me at:Melodie@mennomedia.org