Escaping boundaries

Saturday in the First Week of Lent

You trace my journeys and my resting-places
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Psalm 139:2

The day spreads out ahead of me, awaiting my engagement.

For years, as a disciplined morning person, I spent my first hours in unwavering routine and ritual. How I began my day affected all that came next. It was almost as if I had to pack all my prayer, ritual, gratitude, listening to the Almighty, into the early morning hours.

So much is different now. Over the past year, I have experienced time, schedules, and rhythms as somewhat surreal. Like a frozen stream, my energy slowed and took strange turns, no longer fast paced or moving in a predictable course.

Grace, having tenderly invited me into transformation, continues to accompany me. Now, I enter my days more gently. It is as if my relationship with the holy has escaped the strict boundaries I had adhered to, seeping into my entire day of oddly kept hours. This pace is slow, but deep, deep, deep. Churning up residue in my soul that has long been settled, some of which brings sweetness to the surface, some of which needs to be examined and then released.

Is it the day that is holy, ready and waiting for me to take part in God’s Kairos time.

Image by Ruth Vivian Aschilier-Foser from Pixabay

Re-creation

Friday in the First Week of Lent

Open my lips, O Lord,

and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.

Psalm 51:16

I prepare for a day of respite and feel a sense of gratitude wash over me, calming and energizing. I have learned over this past year--as the lines between home and office, work and play, time on and time off, have blurred--how vital it is for me to honor times of restoration.

God cares for our recreation. And re-creation. To give myself over to times of refreshment, especially when they happen upon me at odd moments, is to deeply respect the sacred relationship into which God calls me day after day.

When my lips praise God, I’m not telling the Almighty he is doing a good job. I am honoring, adoring, celebrating the One who has created this exquisite universe and placed me in it, giving me so much to enjoy.

Image by David Mark from Pixabay

Hope on the way

Thursday in the First Week of Lent

The Lord, the God of gods, has spoken;
he has called the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting.
Psalm 50:1

I step outside after a zillion zoom meetings and discover unexpected warmth. The weather is practically balmy. After weeks of snow and unseasonable cold for this region, I’m almost wary. Is this a real thaw? Can I allow myself to believe?

Today is the first day that I can actually taste the possibility of spring. Of course, I know spring inevitably comes, but I have been holding my expectation at bay. In some fashion, I have equated the coming of spring with the ending of the pandemic. And this pandemic road has been too long and too tumultuous for me to think it will give way easily. Or soon.

But hope that is seen is not hope, St. Paul reminds us. And ultimately, I am a person of hope and joy. The warmth, the melting snow, the sunshine do carry the promise of a spring that cannot yet be seen but is truly on its way. Winter will end. Vaccines will get distributed. People will emerge from isolation. Our God who calls the earth from its rising to its setting will call forth new life. I can lean into the afternoon sunshine and the hope of abundance with assurance.

Image by Olya-02 from Pixabay

Holy radiance

Wednesday in the First Week of Lent
Feast of St. Matthias

Restore us, O God of hosts;
show the light of your countenance,
and we shall be saved
Psalm 80:3

The sun has dropped below the horizon, and the vestiges of its light and warmth paint lovely orange streaks across the clouds. On the desk in front of me is a lighted candle and a fairy-light tree sculpture, while a reading lamp casts an amiable glow over my shoulder.

This day I have craved light. Not so much seeking brightness or illumination as comfort. Reassurance. Promise. A reminder of the power of what was first spoken into being. The radiance of the holy.

As the evening slowly envelops this part of the world, I remind myself that God perpetually holds each of us within her gaze. We are never beyond the light of the divine, which forever encompasses all of creation.

The darkness falls, a soft blanket wrapping me lovingly into the promise of salvation.

Photo credit: Anne E. Kitch

Refuge

Tuesday in the First Week of Lent

God is in her citadels;
and is known to be her sure refuge.
Psalm 48:3

The snow squall comes on suddenly while clients are waiting outside to receive food from our pantry. We quickly open a room where folks can find refuge, with enough space for social distancing and an open door for ventilation. There are so many things to consider in a pandemic. 

A pandemic is its own kind of wilderness. Dangerous. Unknown. Abundant with fear and scare of resources. Nothing but endless, no matter which way you look. Even now with light visible at the end of the tunnel, for many, safety remains a hope rather than a reality.

During this pandemic, we have created our own places of refuge. In zoom meetings, in our homes, on walks, in creative endeavors. At the same time, familiar places of refuge have often been inaccessible, leaving us vulnerable and battered. And unexpected doors have opened, offering safety and restoration.

I remind myself once again that God is my refuge.  I am not on my own, not abandoned to my own resources or lack thereof. The holy One is sanctuary for all creatures, for all of creation.

Image by Fabio Grandis from Pixabay

Clearing the way

 Monday in the First Week of Lent

Rise up, and help us,
and save us, for the sake of
your steadfast love.
Psalm 44:26

The longer day and the warmer sun make my afternoon walk pleasant. I am grateful for my neighbors who have been diligent about clearing sidewalks even as the snow is piled higher than anyone can recall in recent times. There are still a few corner hillsides to navigate as the plows often undo the work of the shovelers, reburying paths that were once clear.

Although I am gratefully aware of companions who walk the Lenten way with me, I mostly think of this journey as a solitary endeavor. Moses, Elijah, and Jesus went alone on their forty day fasts in the wilderness, and so the tradition of solitude and dependance on holy succor is deeply imbedded.

Yet as I walk between the snowbanks, I think that perhaps we also clear the way for one another during this season. Without specific recognition, without doing it for anyone in particular, our own way through the wilderness, our repeated reliance on God, creates a pathway that remains, allowing others to perceive the trace. And perhaps I am unconsciously guided by the shimmer of others who are just ahead of me, wending their own perilous and hopeful way, counting on the steadfast love of God.

Image by kinkate from Pixabay

Kneading

 Saturday after Ash Wednesday

Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul?
and why are you so disquieted within me?
Put your trust in God;
for I will yet give thanks to him,
who is the help of my countenance, and my God.
Psalm 42:14-15

It has been a long time since I kneaded dough, but my hands remember, and soon my whole being is absorbed with the calming rhythmic motion. I had forgotten the pleasure of the feel of it.

I have decided to make pretzels, something new for me. As I pull the dough apart and begin form each one, it becomes less cooperative, the consistency not what I expect or want. I wonder what is amiss. Is it the yeast, my kneading, a missed step?

I ask a friend. It could be the dryness and the cold, she speculates. Let it rest for a while. Of course. The dough, like me, like the rest of us, is susceptible to the environment around it. It becomes less when it doesn’t have what it needs. And rest helps.

I know rest is important. But what if I understood rest as a necessary ingredient? Not just something that is nice when you can get it, but an essential component in Lent and life?

Which leaves me to ponder not only how I will find rest in the wilderness, but what it might look like.

Image by Giulio Perricone from Pixabay

Vortex

Friday after Ash Wednesday

Blessed be the Lord!
for he has shown me the wonders of his love in a besieged city.
Psalm 31:21

The journey has barely begun when I pause. To wonder. To wonder why. Why do I fling myself into the vortex of the wild season of Lent from which the only escape is repentance? Why intentionally engage in self-examination and amendment of life? Why  does this rhythm of living differently for forty days call to me? 

My why does not hold complaint, but deep curiosity. Especially now, as every day presents its own volatile turmoil, and every one and every place I know is besieged, I wonder what compels me and others to seek a wilderness of spiritual intensity.

I do know that this year more than ever I cannot walk this path lightly, cannot skim the surface. The past months have taught me too much about the kind of fortitude and honesty a life aiming for goodness demands. So, the vortex it is. I take a deep breath and prepare to learn more about repentance, about turning, about restoration than I ever thought I would need. 

Image by PatternPictures from Pixabay

Embarking

Thursday after Ash Wednesday

Commit your way to the Lord and put your trust in him,
and he will bring it to pass.
Psalm 37:5

Once again, I step foot into the Lenten wilderness, and in doing so am aware that I am now committed to this way, which is known and unknown. Not every wilderness is the same. Some are deserts. Some are jungles. All are wild. Some people find in the wilderness a home, some a barren place, some a haven, some a treacherous landscape.

I take my first steps slowly, not so much because I am hesitant about this journey, but because I cannot know what it holds for me this time; I want to pay attention. After the grief and tumult of this past year, I am more attuned to the necessity of this way, more hungry for the strengthening it offers, more aware of how much I depend on the faith that is honed here, and more certain that this endeavor is not about how I will be sustained in this wilderness, but how this wilderness journey will prepare and sustain me for the life that comes next.

I will most likely become lost within this wilderness. I know with certainly I will be lost without it. I pray for the courage to choose engagement. I beseech wisdom of those more weathered by this way. I yearn for the grace to disentangle and leave behind the trappings that do not bring me life.  And I take the next step.

Photo credit: Anne E. Kitch

Ashes and dust

Ash Wednesday

For the Lord knows whereof we are made;

and remembers that we are but dust.
Psalm 103:14

Today, there will be no ashes made from last year’s palms marking foreheads in my community. Nevertheless, we are all marked by ashes. Ashes of the past year, of usurped dreams and opportunities. Ashes left by grief and disbelief. Ashes of the celebrations and rituals that were unfathomably lost. Ashes which are the remnant of brokenness. Broken systems, broken promises, broken hopes.

We have been marked by fear and anguish, and when I say we it is all of us. It is not hyperbole to say that no one in the entire world is left unscathed. It is beyond imagining.

And we have been marked by holiness. We have been marked by courage and creativity and sheer determination. By prayer and poetry and acts of kindness. We have exercised our faith and been astounded by the faith of others.

The dust we are asked to remember this day, the dust that is our beginning and our end, is the dust of stars and deserts. It is the dust that God molded with powerful hands and into which the Holy One breathed life. The same hands that hold us still. The same breath that inspires us yet. The same love that marks us as God’s own. It is beyond imagining. And is it our truth.

Photo credit: Anne E. Kitch