It seems it was Advent the last time I posted here, and now, I have a Lent reflection for you.
As I was reading in preparation for the Lent / Easter period, I read through John 13–21, and I noticed how often Jesus says ‘I’ or ‘me’. As part of my research, I am utilising The Listening Guide Method for interview analysis, and one step of this process consists of creating ‘I’ Poems from interview transcripts. This is where you take each time an interviewee says ‘I’ and separate it to pay attention to how they talk.
Given that we notice things that relate to where our attention is (my attention at the moment is primarily on my research), I couldn't help but wonder what it would look like to create an 'I' poem from Jesus' words. I went through the entire passage and I also took out all of the chapter and verse and heading details, which offers a different perspective on how we often read these chapters.
This process offered an opportunity to hear and read Jesus’ words with fresh ears and eyes, to take us out of what we expect to hear. Poetry doesn’t always make sense, but it can tell the truth.
This is an ever so slightly adapted version of the ‘I’ sentences of John 13-21NLT that I used for worship at church a few weeks ago.
These passages also use the term ‘Father’ a lot, and instead, I decided to incorporate a series of alternate names for God, and I’ve included a loose interpretation of each of the names.
If this is something that you might be interested in using as part of your own Lent reflection, I invite you to pay attention to the words and how you respond. How does it make you feel? What does it make you think about? Where is your attention?