Lent week 1: Meditate in deep silence to truly sense God

Kamehameha Schools Hawai‘i Theater Kumu Eric Stack and Keiki Kahu Ioane Boshard KSH’21 share their mana‘o for the first week of Lent season.

Feb. 19, 2021

Contributed by Nadine Lagaso

KS created a series of Hawaiian-focused devotionals for Lent to honor the deep Christian faith of KS founder Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop. The devotionals were designed to be used by students, staffers and others to celebrate the coming of Easter, so please feel free to share them.

Heluhelu Baibala
Bible reading

He wā e hāmau ai, A he wā hoʻi e ‘ōlelo ai.
– Ke Kahuna 3:7

A time to be silent, and a time to speak.
– Ecclesiastes 3: 7

He manaʻo o ka limahana
KSH Theater Kumu Eric Stack
It is odd to say we are entering Lent, when it feels as though we have been in the season of Lent for a year now. It was just before Easter of 2020 that the quarantine began. Now with the beginning of a new year and the promise of universal vaccinations on the horizon, we all want to believe we are leaving Lent, not beginning it.

Yes, my friends, for the last year we went through something extraordinary, and we are now ready for a rebirth. Here we are – the few, the happy few – ready to go maskless, return to the classroom, eat in the dining hall, attend sporting events, performances, and express aloha the way we know how.

But Lent teaches us we cannot merely Tik-Tok our way through life from one chapter to the next in the mist of eternal distraction and denial. We need to take a minute of silent repose and reflect on our journey: who we were a year ago and who we are now. In this way we celebrate and appreciate the growth of being. We reflect on our moments of weaknesses and our moments of strength. It is through this measuring of spirit that we know how far we came and how far we can go. Lent is the surrendering to the darkness before the supernova of rebirth.

And what is this darkness? In the Kumulipo, it mentions Pō, the time before time. Renowned Hawaiian spiritual leader Nana Veary described it as God’s Consciousness, the essence of the human soul. Therefore I challenge us all to spend 10 minutes a day for the next 40 days to delve deep into this silence. Into God’s silence, sans your favorite Spotify playlist for mediation. Think not of school, family, video games, how good Tom Brady is, or even Jesus. Go deep to the beginning of silence. Go there and when you arrive, you will be closer to God than ever. Then you will be ready for your Super Nova of Easter and shed this COVID of our discontent and breathe anew a glorious dawn.

He manaʻo o ka haumana
Keiki Kahu Ioane Boshard KSH’21

To understand the undisputed love of Jesus Christ we look beyond the father and son relationship. Jesus said I and Father are one, ʻO wau a ʻo ka Makua, hoʻokahi māua. The unique relationship of Jesus to God is enhanced by divine revelation of the Holy Spirit and by faith we know and understand that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, represent our Triune God. During this season of Lent, we shall undergo, a time of reflection in honor of Jesus and his sacrifice for all. After reading Kumu Stack’s manaʻo which directed us to meditate in the deep silence to sense God, I intend to further this commemoration by encouraging us to also meditate on who I believe Jesus was always thinking about, God the Father.