The Resurrection and Spiritual Hangriness

I want to talk about being hangry. I’ll give you a quick description of hangriness, though I warn you, it doesn’t come from the Oxford English Dictionary. Hangriness is when you’re so hungry you get angry. You turn into a real piece of work. You can’t get anything done and you’re probably not a joy to be around, at least until you grab a snack. Everybody gets this way sometimes.

We can be this way in our souls, too. It’s so easy to get distracted by the hungers of this world: greed, pride, anxiety. We can become ruled by the needs of our bodies and the desires of our mind and, in doing so, neglect the needs and the desires of our souls.

Everyday stewardship calls us to a constant reflection on the truth that we are not made for this world, as Christ clearly shows us in his Transfiguration. He reveals himself in his heavenly glory, just before he is going to be deprived of all earthly needs and wants — even his very life. He shows us that this is what we were meant for. This is what we are striving for.

Lent exists to remind us that we are not made for this world. When you become spiritually hangry — or as Scripture more eloquently puts it this week, when your mind is “occupied with earthly things” — turn your thoughts to the Transfiguration. I promise you, it’s even better than grabbing an energy bar.

— Tracy Earl Welliver, MTS