I haven’t posted anything around the subject of Lent so far. During my retreat in Janaury I was reflecting on the book of lamentations and I came across these quotes by the theologian Kathleen O’Connor.

“Lamentation names what is wrong, what is out of order in God’s world, what keeps human beings from thriving in all of their creative potential. Simple acts of lament expose these conditions, name them, open them to grief and anger and make them visible for remedy.”

“In its complaint, anger and grief, lamentations protests conditions that prevent human thriving and this resistance may finally prepare the way for healing.”

We all lament. It is healthy and can bring us some freedom. Below is a (fun) and modern day lament!


21st December2004.
Dear Continental Airlines,
I am disgusted as I write this note to you about the miserable experience I am having sitting in seat 29e on one of your aircraft. As you may know this seat seat is situated directly across from the lavatory, so close that I can reach out my left arm and touch the door. All my senses are being tortured simultaneously and it’s difficult to say whta the worst part about siiting in 29e really is.

Is it the stench of the sanitation fluid that is blown all over my body every 60 seconds when the door opens? Is it the woosh of the constant flushing? Or is it the passengers asses that seem to fit into my personal space like a pornographic jigsaw puzzle?

I constructed a stink shield by shoving one end of a blanket into the overhead compartment – while effective in blocking at least some of the smell, and offering a small bit of privacy, the ass – on my body factor has increased as without mmy evil glare, passengers feel free to lean up against what they think is some kind of blnketed wall. The next ass that touches my shoulder will be the last.

I am picturing a board room. Full of executives giving props to the young promising engineer that figured out how to squeeze an additional row of seats onto the plane by putting them next to the lav. I would like to flush his head in the toilet that I am close enough to touch from my seat. Putting a seat here was a very bad idea. I just heard a man GROAN in thee! This sucks!

Worse yet, is i’ve paid over $400 for the honour of sitting in this seat. Does your company give refunds? I’d like to go baack to where I came from and start over. Seat 29e could only be worse if it was located inside the bathroom.

I wonder if my clothing will retain the sanitary odour ... what about my hair! I feel like I’m bathin in a toilet bowel of blue liquid, and there is no man in a little boat to save me.

I am filled with a deep hatred for your plane designer and a genreal dis –ease that may last for hours.

We are finally descending and soon I will be able to tear down the stink shield, but the odour will remain. I suggest that you initiate immediate removal of this seat from all of your crafts. Just remove it, and leave the smouldering brown hole empty, a place for dturdy/non absorbtion, luggage maybe but definately not human cargo.





Above is a copy of the original letter. Having endured an 8 hour flight to Canada recently, I can sympathise with his predicament.

Seriously though, Lent is a time for letting go and giving God permission to be at liberty in our lives. My meditation time this week is about the things I need to move on from, so that I might be amazed at the wonderful ways God wants to bring new life, a renewed vitality, when I celebrate the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus at Easter.