These are the principal neighborly disciplines that connect the purpose of God to the urgency of neighborly well-being.

We live in a culture that caters to its privileged children in every conceivable way.  That often means that children lack the discipline necessary to grow into responsible adulthood.  Lack of discipline leads to narcissistic selfishness and indulgence.  But Lent, against such a cultural propensity, is a call to discipline. 

And that is, what I am afraid, is the basis of the Bernie Sanders campaign, the youth (of all ages) mania for a candidate who will not beat Trump and if, by some miracle, won the election would still cost us the Senate and never be able to put his unrealistic promises into law.   It is a terrible idea to base a political left on the "youth vote" or the vote of people who, by affluence or inclination never grow up.  I note that the Sanders website touts the movie-stars who endorse his candidacy.  Two words Susan Sarandon.  The make-believe of that "dream factory," Hollywood is an even worse place to build a real left from.  The best of them act more like 12-year-old boys without any parental supervision than even most of the college students I know.  

I am going to dip into Walter Brueggemann's Lenten writings from is book Gift and Task that I used during Advent, though I'm not going to type out the entire text nor give the liturgical readings he bases his writing on but take excerpts.  I'd recommend the book, though it only covers one year of the liturgical cycle - for a year that we are not in right now.  

What the American left needs more than anything else right now it is a lot of what Brueggemann talks about in his Ash Wednesday meditation. 

The question of discipline surfaces in the prophetic poem of Amos.  The undisciplined in ancient Israel, says the poet., "trample on the poor."  They did so by sharp market dealings, by bribery, and by skewed judicial procedures, "in the gate."  All these exploitative practices were in the service of self-indulgence, to satiates one's appetite at the expense of the vulnerable. 

In the face of such exploitation, Amos utters a series of imperatives that are in sum a summons to discipline.  Thus he says in terse sequence, "Seek the Lord,"  "seek good, "  "hate evil,"  "love good,"  "establish justice."  These are the principal neighborly disciplines that connect the purpose of God to the urgency of neighborly well-being.

Lent, which begins today, is a season of discipline that calls us away from indifferent self-indulgence that takes place through antineighborly practice.  The issue for Amos is greed in the marketplace.  These calls to discipline move beyond private piety to public practice.  We are, in Lent, not unlike the tax collector in Jesus' parable, cognizant of our sin in public practice. 

Walter Brueggemann:  Gift and Task: Ash Wednesday.

I am tempted more than ever to become a hermit, perhaps it's only my Irish cultural affection for strife that keeps me from doing that.  But that's a self-indulgence I hope I never give in to.  There wouldn't be any good in it.