Searching for Saints

Friday Reflection & Conversation

This Lent, we’ll be exploring a the theme “empty altars” (read the post introducing Empty Altars.) We’re living in a time when the heroes and saints of former times have been taken down or knocked from their pedestals — leaving many of our spiritual spaces and public squares unadorned, even desolated.

Photograph by Kate Nelson, New Mexico Magazine

But this isn’t a deconstruction project. The deconstruction has been done, these shifts in church and community are well underway. Some people are, of course, angry about this and want to go back to the world we used to inhabit. Others are glad for the changes. But most of us, I suspect, are bewildered: What do we do now?

Empty altars raises an important question. What replaces that which is gone? We never seem to leave altars bare for long. We fill spaces back up — it is up to us to face this task wisely and with courage. Sometimes, it is easier to empty altars than to figure out what to do with the blank space.

There’s nothing wrong with taking down statues, with upending any or all of the gods that we’ve come to worship. Indeed, the season of Lent invites Christians to strip the altars of our hearts to make room for spiritual new birth. But ultimately, Lent is a reconstruction project that begins by clearing away false idols in order to renew, amend, and reorient our lives.

And so, for the next forty-ish days, we’ll be exploring the questions — What do we do now? What stories will fire our spirits anew? Are there saints and heroes who can serve as icons to guide us toward a world of greater love and justice?

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Here’s what to expect over the next six weeks