Six more weeks of wintered trudging
through a wilderness bereft of alleluias.

The poet describes Another Lent beginning in a wilderness without any sort of praise. There is no joy because it doesn’t feel like anything matters. It is all dust.

Lent can feel like that sort of disruption where we step outside of joy into a more austere and limited focus. We narrow our gaze on our humanity and wonder if anything really matters. When there are things to celebrate, it does feel like such a sidestep but in other years, like this one, it feels like we are already there. This is a place we have found ourselves already.

Joy feels fairway in this place where the wildness has overtaken us. We are struggling to survive and we want so much to believe that this feeling will only last for six weeks. Resurrection will come. Christ will rise again. Alleluias will reign and all hope will be restored. It is the story we repeat year after year and the promise we claim even in the years when it feels dang near impossible that love will win because the wilderness is too thick. We cannot see ourselves out and are still wondering how in the world we got here. Here we are in the wilderness. What does it mean to occupy this space? What does it mean to wander with Jesus through these 40 days in this place bereft of alleluias?

These prayers seek to navigate through the unknown of the wilderness in all six weeks of wintered trudging. It’s not a complete list but there are other wonderful resources out there like The Many’s Wilderness Liturgy and this collection of Wilderness Poems from Sanctified Art. So there are just a few prayers here.

Inspired by Psalm 63:1-8 (Lent 3C)

Searching for a rhyme or reason,
we are weary in this wilderness.
We've wandered too far and too long
and our parched voices can barely 
profess our faith,
O God, you are our God. 
We have looked and searched
this strange terrain where 
nothing makes sense. 
O God, how we wish for 
things to make sense again.
O God, you are our God. 
We call upon your holy name
trying to hold onto your grace
when nothing feels certain.
In this wilderness place, we 
know we are not alone. 
We are together, worn and weary,
but united in heart, calling into the void,
O God, you are our God. 

Inspired by 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 (Lent 4C)

Come, O Wonder. Come
to shift our human point of view
because we cannot see our way
through this wild place on our own. 

Come, O Wonder. Come
into the desolation of this place
because we do not see anything 
new here. Nothing improves.
It is all the same and we so long
to see a new creation. 

Come, O Wonder. Come
and enfold us in your love
so that even when we cannot
see the way we know that we
are always held in your grace.
Come into our midst now, 
we pray.

Inspired by Isaiah 43:16-21 (Lent 5C)

Dear Lord, we want to go back
to the things of old, the former things
whatever you might want to call it. 
We would rather be anywhere but 
here in the wild wonder 
of whatever might come next.
We cannot see your new thing, O God.
Forgive us but we are just trying to survive.
We are trying to make it through this awful moment
when it feels like nothing good will ever come.
We just don't see it and we so want 
to believe that you will make a way
where it feels like there is no way.
But O Lord, it is hard.

I hope these prayers might orient your place in the wilderness this Lent. If you use these prayers, and I hope you do, I hope that you will give me credit somewhere in your bulletin or worship slide by adding “created by Elsa Anders Cook from Cooking with Elsa (cookingwithelsa.org).

If you are not already a subscriber to News From My Kitchen, you might look for some more ideas on the wilderness over there.