Facing into the wind

This handsome heron was enjoying the breeze on my roof yesterday; don't you just love the way those long thin feathers blow in the wind?

The wind is blowing lots of interesting things my way this week, and I'm having a little difficulty figuring out what to act on and what to let ride -- or fly, as the case may be!

That's the amazing thing about Lent: it forces you to face into the wind and try to hold your balance while getting hit with some of the really hard stuff, the shadow stuff, the things you wish you didn't know about yourself. But out of that wrestling ALWAYS comes growth, and possibility; interesting shifts in perspective, new ideas and approaches... it's all very productive, even if it can be difficult and painful.

So the question for me today, which I invite you to do your own wrestling with, is this: As you examine your heart, with the same intensity and suspicion that this heron shows watching me and my camera, what's the part of your emotional/psychological/spiritual makeup that you like the least? And how could you turn that around and, combining it somehow with your god-given talents, make it work for good?

I'm still working on this question, but I got some good -- and surprising -- possibilities today; hope you do, too!