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Carl Rogers was a 20th Century American psychologist who pioneered “Client-Centered Therapy”, sometimes cynically called, “Uh Huh” therapy. Having watched a video of one of his counseling sessions while in a grad school class, I understood the label if not the cynicism. He said very little during the session. Mostly he said, “Uh huh” and nodded when the client said something. The client and her issues dominated the session, not Dr. Rogers and his expertise. Yet you could see and hear the relief in the client’s voice and body language after having talked for an hour or so naming so many troubles and getting them out there.

Dr. Rogers also had 2 years of seminary under his belt when he left to pursue a Master’s and PhD in psychology. His seminary training never completely left him, and, in part, helped shape his methods and counseling, particularly in terms of putting the focus on the client.

I came across a Dr. Rogers quote this past week that seems to be spot on for Lent. Rogers said, “The curious paradox is only when I accept myself as I them, then can I change”. I found this quote in a book about the Holocaust, urging all to come to grips with their role in this so that substantive change in Anti-Semitism could truly occur.

It is, however, a great quote to hold in front of us during Lent, a time of self-examination and repentance. It is one thing to acknowledge we are sinners and quite another to many times name those sins, especially those that work to eat away at the world God created.

Lent is much more than sorrow for sin. Lent is repentance, in the original Greek of the New Testament, metanoia, which means “turning around.” Do you and I discover ourselves turning around in Lent or simply saying, “I’m sorry for being a sinner and for my sinning”? Are we merely trying to return to the good favor of God or working, instead, on becoming a different, new, and perhaps better person?

In Jesus Christ we are already reconciled with God. Repentance is not so we get our piece of the action so we might share in such reconciliation. It is demonstrable sorrow wanting to change and turn around. It is wanting to change and turn around because we have this gift granted in Jesus Christ. Most of us cannot do a “180” on who we are. Yet, I am convinced most all of us can do a “180” on something specific in our sin. What might that specific thing be for you this Lent? For me? What is the biggest challenge before us needing change in how we live and act? What steps are needed for such turning around?

I sometimes picture God as responding to our prayers like Dr. Rogers responds to client statements. Uh huh. Our prayers are most often more necessary for us than for God. God already knows. Uh huh. In prayer we get our anxieties, our frustrations, our fears, and concerns off our chest and hand them off to God. Uh huh. We also express them, name them, and get them out there in front of ourselves realizing what work we ourselves might have to do in these prayer concerns. Uh huh.

I wonder if next Sunday I just read the gospel text, then say “Uh huh”. Would that be sermon enough? Nuh ah. Sermons are about proclaiming, not confessing. Perhaps our best work this Lent would be to accept oneself as one truly is, then letting the work of change begin. Uh huh!

Have you ever had the good fortune to go to a place where few people could understand you? Notice, I called such an experience good fortune. Such an experience can be a time of learning and growth.

I have been fortunate enough to have done this a few times. As a 17-year-old recent high school grad, I went into the interior of Mexico with a Mexican exchange student who had lived with us. Another time on a church trip with other ULC folk, I found myself in Hungary where I did not recognize a single word on menus, signs, and billboards.

The experience, however, that comes most to mind is one in a small hilltop town in Portugal. Tourism had only recently come to this town and area. Most English-speaking Portuguese in this region were the young. We were taken into a bakery, known for an unusual four-cornered bread. The chief and only baker was an older Portuguese woman who knew no English. We spent some time there watching bread begin as flour and ingredients, moving to become dough, then shaped, and put into a brick oven.

During this time some of our group, including wife Mary Beth, volunteered to be taught how to make this bread. Working with her, not a word that was understood was exchanged between baker and “apprentices”. Yet the communication was perfect! Cooperation, smiles, gestures, the moving of eyes from one target to another, and the rhythm of rolling dough and forming it into bread shapes together did all the speaking and communicating. Without an understood word, she had Mary Beth put the newly formed dough on a large wooden paddleboard to be inserted into a brick oven.

Watching all this it became obvious to me that while our baker friend did not seem to know any English, she was very fluent in humanity. She led the posse of four corner bread mentees not by her tongue, but by her heart. No barker of orders was she, instead leading by her warmth, smiles, pointing, and passion for her craft, and sense of human community.

Mohammed once said, “Don’t tell me your education, tell me your travels.” One does not have to have the ability to go far to do this. The internet and television offer great opportunities. PBS, Discovery Channel, even the Food Network can help us get a sense of common humanity shared with those living and doing differently than us. Like Israel wandering in the wilderness or the disciples leaving all to follow Jesus into the unknown, most of us have some traveling experience as we journey through life.

Having so traveled, do we push those experiences away failing to see the common thread of humanity in others or do we learn from them and grow from them? Were we tourists in our travels more interested in taking photos and acquiring signs of conquest called souvenirs or were we instead explorers, adventurers, and learners?

God does not call us to go through life so much as God calls us into life to experience it through our humanity. Often, we best discover our own humanity as we discover the humanity in those most different from us. May we all work to become more fluent in humanity. We may all better recognize God as creator of all when we do so.