Lenten Reflection from Bishop Harmon

April 09, 2025

Well Water Wisdom

Reflections from John T.W. Harmon

“Returning to God”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
2025 April 4th
 
Rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, 
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.
~ Joel 2:13

Beloved,
 
Lent is an obvious invitation to repent, renew, and amend our lives; but it is much more. Lent is also about conversion; embracing our need for transformation. Conversion, in this sense, is a kind of returning to where we have not been before. Since it is almost impossible for us to return to where we have never been, our returning as a Lenten discipline, is an invitation to surrender, or give back to God that which belongs to God — our very selves. Thus, our return is a journey forward on a path that takes us deeper and back into the heart of God, our true home.
 
If conversion is indeed a return to a place we have yet to experience, a place where we have no recollections, then we can echo William Wordsworth's words:
 
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;

The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
         
Hath had elsewhere its setting
               
And cometh from afar;
         
Not in entire forgetfulness,
         
And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come 
               
From God, who is our home:


Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Our conversion as a returning to God is more than a mere memory of some distant or imagined past. It is about the grounding of our lives and souls in a commitment to holiness, fostering a kindness that transforms everything about our lives and habits. It is an ongoing invitation to return again to our authentic selves, where we are unrecognizable, even to ourselves, as our hearts burn with the fire of God’s love.
 
Conversion is hard work. It requires sacrifice and involves some suffering that invites us to get out of the way so that God might be visible in and through us. It is passionate love that involves surrendering our wills, allowing us to reflect Christ's love in a broken and hurting world. Ultimately, our conversion is a reunion with God and each other, creating bonds of peace that give rise to joy.
 
May the remaining days of Lent bless you with joy and strength as Holy Week approaches.
 
With Lenten blessing, I am,
 
Faithfully,
The Right Reverend John T. W. Harmon
Bishop of Arkansas