31: Take the Steps

​”If you bring your gift to the altar and there recall that another has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled and then return”
Matthew 5

Words like this leave me like I felt in the middle of the half-marathon — too far forward and too far back. To imagine being completely reconciled and able to offer my gifts without recognition of additional ‘cobwebs in the corner’ feels like the definition of the impossible dream.

During my morning meditation each day, one of my intentions and requests of God is for the grace to move through the day without creating “new material” for reconciliation. It’s a good thing that God’s patience exceeds my own!

I was reminded this morning of one of a story from my dad’s years of aging and slowing. He loved their home, but regretted when shingles took the neurological function of his legs and he was no longer able to use the steps to the basement where the shower was. As I would head down the steps, he would always say to me, “make every step count and never take them for granted.”

I am a step-counter, measuring daily success by the consistency with the 10,00 step mark. Generally, I measure the steps, but I don’t “matter” them. Today, my Lenten practice is different.

Just for Today: Take the Steps and Make them Matter

I can’t do it all in a day … but I can make today’s steps count — I may not be able to reconcile all things in one day, but I can make today’s steps count. I can take the steps … one at a time and make each one matter… and then, knowing today’s steps have mattered, I return to the altar knowing that today’s material…mattered.