A Book for Lent : a podcast series
Each year during the season of Lent, the church is challenged to voluntarily move into desert terrain, and to wrestle there with foundational human questions of life and death, sin and grace, our failings and the promise of restoration. In 2009 we published A Book For Lent: Toward What We Can Scarcely Imagine and Scarcely Refuse by James Snyder, with illustrations by Helen Lyons. This year we decided to serialize the eight meditations as a podcast series to be shared over the course of the Lenten series. As each episode is released it will be added to this post. For this series, the meditations are read by Jamie Howison, with music by Steve Bell.
Episode 8 - The Seventh Word - The eighth and final episode in our serialization of A Book For Lent , offering a reflection on the words "Into thy hands I commend my spirit", by James Snyder.
Episode 7 - The Sixth Word - The seventh episode in our serialization of A Book For Lent , offering a reflection on the words "It is Finished" by James Snyder.
Episode 6 - The Fifth Word - The sixth episode in our serialization of A Book For Lent , offering a reflection on the words "I thirst," by James Snyder.
Episode 5 - The Fourth Word - The fifth episode in our serialization of A Book For Lent , offering a reflection on the words "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" by James Snyder.
Episode 4 - The Third Word - The fourth episode in our serialization of A Book For Lent , offering a reflection on the words "Woman, behold thy son. Behold thy mother" by James Snyder.
Episode 3 - The Second Word - The third episode in our serialization of A Book For Lent , offering a reflection on the words "Verily I say unto thee, today thou shalt be with me in Paradise," by James Snyder.
Episode 2 - The First Word - The second episode in our serialization of A Book For Lent , offering a reflection on the words "Father forgive them, for they do not know what they do," by James Snyder.
Episode 1 - Ottla: a sermon for Ash Wednesday - The first episode in our serialization of A Book For Lent: Toward What We Can Scarcely Imagine and Scarcely Refuse by James Snyder.
About the author: Now retired, James Snyder is native of Minneapolis, and an ordained Lutheran pastor. He is licensed to function as a priest of the Episcopal (Anglican) Church, and has served Lutheran and Anglican parishes in Texas, Halifax/Dartmouth, Minneapolis, St. Paul, and in smaller communities in Minnesota outside of the Twin Cites. Jim has worked in the field of youth and family care for a number of years, as a counsellor and program director for residential treatment programs. Jim includes The Rule of Benedict in his daily prayer life, and maintain a relationship with St. John's Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota.
About the artist and her method: Helen Lyons was a Winnipeg-artist artist who worked in a number of media. The series of the Stations of the Cross included here are aquatints, executed in the intaglio method on copper plates in which tones are obtained by powdered resins or paint spray; the acid “bites” the tones into the plate to various depths, with deeper bites yielding darker tones. We were fortunate to have Helen as a member of saint benedict’s table, and to count a set of these limited prints as our own. May she rest in peace and rise in glory.
