In the gospel appointed for today, we hear Jesus lamenting: "How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing." Picture for a moment the mother hen clucking anxiously for her chicks to hurry under her covering wings to be protected from whatever danger she perceives. See yourself as one of those chicks; How do you respond? Do you turn immediately and scurry to her sheltering wings? Or do you stop and look around to see what has frightened her? In so doing, do you recognize the looming danger, or does it tempt you to come closer, to check it out. What other responses come to mind?

Another image of the dilemma of being willing or unwilling to answer the call to return is to be found in a Tiffany stained glass window in Christ Cathedral in Mobile, Alabama, seat of the Episcopal Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast. It is based on the passage in Rev.3:20: "Listen! I am standing at the door knocking; If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and eat with you and you with me." There is Jesus holding a lantern and knocking on the dark door. The door portrayed in the window has no latch on the outside; it must be opened from the inside. Imagine yourself there on the other side of the door. How will you respond?

God is always calling us to return to Love's embrace, to realize how far we have strayed from the Divine Presence in our desire to be in control, to do things our own way, to fit in with the world around us. Are you willing--or unwilling--to abandon yourself into the arms of the Holy One this Lent?