To answer the invitation?

New Beginnings, Getting to Know Jesus and an Invitation
So many new beginnings in the cycles and routines of our lives: Each morning as  I shower and prepare for the day ahead is a new beginning. Each Monday marks a new beginning as the week stretches ahead of me. Each season (winter, spring, summer and fall) is a new beginning. Each liturgical season of the Church is a new beginning, starting with Advent, then Christmas, Lent and Easter, interspersed with what we call Ordinary Time, which is not what you would think. It's hardly ordinary in the sense of plain old regular nothing-special-about-it time. But it's marked off by ordinal numbers, week by week.

And more than any other season, Lent is a time to reflect on new beginnings. Remembering, reflecting and rethinking is what Lent is all about. Remembering our past. Reflecting on how we're doing, what we did well and what we might do better. Rethinking how we will handle our tomorrows.

Since each chapter has a question at the end, that's a good way to reflect each week.

In what area of your life is God inviting you to experience a new beginning?

That is easy. God has been after me for a couple of years now to embrace new experiences, actually, to embrace a new direction in life.

Two years ago my parish offered a Lenten prayer walk that focused on looking at life in Third World countries. It was an incredible eye-opener.

We've had a sister parish relationship with Our Lady of Mercy in Managua, Nicaragua for more than 2 decades. I've know about it, I've met the pastor when he has visited us. I've paid attention to the presentations from the pilgrimage made by members of our own parish every other year. But never did I feel moved by them to do anything (other than donate money) until last year.

We, Rose and I, reflected on the information last year, a year after the prayer walk: the stations that made up that prayer walk, which was all provided by Catholic Relief Services. I have not stopped thinking about this since.

For the past two years I have increasingly felt tugged to do something. I can't leave my job or take a sabbatical, because I can't afford to do without the income, and I'm not sure they'd let me come back if they had to do without me for an extended period of time.

But we have people here in my own community who live in wretched Thrid-World-like conditions -- the homeless. They are dirty, they don't smell good and some of them are crazy, even scary. I wanted to help but I didn't want to hand out money to panhandlers who may or may not actually be homeless, who might be scam artists or drug addicts. So I kept rationalizing and ignoring them, turning my head the other way so I would not have to make eye contact. I continued to give money to the sisters here who devote their lives to working with the poor and homeless, and I waited.

Last winter, a friend of mine who had been talking for some time about wanting to help the homeless started to collect used clothing to distribute, not through regular channels, but just ride around and give things to homeless people on the streets. Not money. Just clothing and maybe some food.

From that humble idea came an organization that began, thanks to another friend who worked with the founder, weekly "distribution runs" on a somewhat fluid but regular route around Salisbury. I began riding with him occasionally as a volunteer, and it has changed my life and my views completely.

I've met and talked with several homeless people. One lives behind my workplace in the woods with her service dog. She is turned away from shelters because of the dog, even though she has a legitimate service dog license. I've hugged grateful people who had tears in their eyes when we gave them a warm coat and a cup of chili or bean soup.

Our group is now a registered 501(c)(3) charity called From Roots To Wings. Our mission is, for the present, to distribute clothing, food, portable snacks, toiletries and other necessities to people each week. No questions asked. No judgments about whether they deserve what we are giving them. Just giving -- but never money.

Our future mission is to establish a "housing first" project in which storage pods are transformed into permanent but basic housing for the homeless, again, no questions asked. From there, we hope to engage them with services that will hep them get back on their feet to whatever extent they are capable. It's a very long-term mission.

So yes, God is calling me to a new beginning in how I spend my time and efforts to make our community better, and to make life better for those who have the least in our community.

How well do I really know Jesus?

Chapter 2 asks the reader to write down everything you know about Jesus. I wrote, quickly: God, man, teacher, Jewish, loving, born to Mary (a virgin), birthday celebrated as Christmas, source of Christian faith, high priest, humble man, homeless itinerant, forgiving, healer, miracle worker, able to raise the dead and cast out demons, walks on water, peaceful, slow to anger, with me all the time.

I sometimes imagine him sitting beside me or just having a conversation with me. I try to imagine what he would say, how he would answer my questions, what advice he would give me. It's as real as it's going to get until I leave this earthly realm. My prayer life, my formal, contemplative prayer life, is lacking because it's hard to slow down, hard to find quiet time alone. But what is lacking there is made up for at least in part by the fact that I can feel his presence with me all the time.

Today's homily (Feb. 21), well, one of the two homilies I heard this morning anyhow, was about not living in fear, no matter what dire fate you are told awaits. That we should not fear anything that's simply Earthly in nature. The other homily talked about how we should welcome and embrace death, but not seek it, only to accept it in God's time.

I feel I know Jesus -- on a scale of 1-10 -- at maybe a 4, because of that presence, and because I try to act on what I feel called to, in some fashion, ie I try to do what I am being told to do.

What area of your life will benefit most from accepting God's invitation to rediscover Jesus?

That's a complex question. And the honest answer is: I have no idea. How could I know? Maybe my self-esteem? My confidence? My ability to respond to my call? My ability to help others?

That's something that will be revealed as we go.