LENT: I CHOOSE ALL!

Currently Reading:
Shirt of Flame: A year with St. Therese of Lisieux

Currently Mulling over:
T.S. Eliot, the Four Quartets

“The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre—
To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.”

Currently Lectio-ing:
Psalm 119
Philippians

LENT.
It’s over now, and, as usual, I’m feeling dissatisfied with, as my friend Sara says, my ability to “inhabit the Lenten drama”. I’m not sure what the standard should be. I began Lent concerned with mindfulness, which then led to a desire for thankfulness, which has ended up with a deep desire for belonging and the ability to welcome suffering. I do feel that Lent has made me more mindful: more aware of God and the world, more present to the Great Realities of life. It’s also made me a better reader of the Bible, which was one of my most important Lenten goals. It’s also made me more aware of superficiality in my life. A friend told me last summer that she thought I wasn’t living the life I was meant to live. I see that clearly, after Lent.
In my head, I believe that it is possible to do Lent perfectly. What does that mean? I don’t know If Lent is a skill one develops, I don’t know if that should be my concern. I gave up reading and watching, because I wanted to embrace emptiness and be more aware of God than the world of invention.
It’s very hard to sit with emptiness, and there were many times when I distracted myself with things I had not declared anathema during this forty day fast. Lent was a struggle because I’m brawling with Calvinist doctrine: very few of the TULIP’s petals smell sweet to me these days. My church is studying 1 John, so I’m struggling with assurance, too. Do I feel certain right now that I’m saved? I don’t. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, they’ve told me. Well, I believe. The issue is a lack of fruit, fruit borne as proof of this salvation. . . . I haven’t written in so long it’s hard to retrieve the right words. . . . After Lent—a time when I should have embraced struggle—I’m struggling with one thing. I’m deathly afraid of suffering.

Embracing Jesus means embracing all he offers—every blessing—and suffering is a blessing, and don’t I know that already?

When I’m not fearfully running from suffering, I like to tentatively pat it on the head with one hand, an acknowledgement of its presence and worth, but not quite a hospitable embrace. I just can’t wrap my arms around it; it might bite my face off. Or, rather, it will bite my face off. How do you welcome pain?
I like to read Saints’ lives because they challenge my understanding of knowing God. For example, St. Therese of Lisieux is all about embracing suffering.

What true saint is not about embracing suffering?

I’m struck with St. Therese’s famous saying: “I choose all!”. Well, I like to choose all the parts of knowing God in Christ that are comfortable and obviously good, and leave all the suffering for more zealous Christians. But, I must be a zealous Christian; that’s the only option available. We only live, only suspire/consumed by either fire or fire.

From St. Therese’s, The Story of a Soul:

Later, when perfection made its appearance to me, I understood that in order to become a saint you have to suffer a lot, always be in search of what is most perfect, and forget yourself.

I don’t want to be a halfway saint. It doesn’t scare me to suffer for You; I’m afraid of only one thing, and that is to hold onto my will. Take it, because ‘I choose all,’ all that You want!

Divert my eyes from toys and trinkets; invigorate me on this pilgrim way.

Lent: Bad at it

To know you only
my soul disappears.
I tire of glimpsing you
in dusty mirrors.
The beauty in the world I know
is only ugliness to me
if you I cannot see.
pregnant with your love,
I climb.
But on this narrow stair,
I recall how fair,
the vanities of this world are.
And I find the path too steep,
the pain too deep—
to keep on looking for you.
I tear my hands—clutching
at blossoms—truly,
only—thorns in my side.
My pride
woos me to stay,
while fears
—heavy iron spurs—
slacken my steps,
protecting me from truth,
making my cup—a pulsing star—
overflowing with your joys,
bitter and black,
—gall and tar.
Drop!
Drop!
Your blood in my cup.
Shine
Shine
(your light in my eyes).
The water of life rushing
in my ears
the currents rise,
and carry me along,
so strong your rivers are.
Your song now
palatable—I float
my ascent, swallowing
mouthfuls of your words.
As the earth revolves
so I spin, turned by you
the One who moves.
Sugar and sadness in
my hymn, I begin to tune
my lips to your unchanging
symphony.
Clutching to the drifting sun,
I wash up on your
golden shore—
and I can't remember anymore
anything brighter than your face.

I'm feeling very happy about this

If you can't tell from the photograph, one of those people is wearing a very fancy ring. But I won't tell you which one. HOORAY!

Lent: Oh! The Sweetness of Reality!

I am moved to blog about Lent. Though I didn't attend an official Ash Wednesday service, I had my own little inaugural ceremony a few nights ago. I'm trying to spend Lent understanding its purpose, and what it means to be in the desert. But, today, I realized that I've recently left my own wilderness. The last seven months were spent wandering through my own wasteland.

Now, with a new apartment, a new job, and a life that matches my own wishes with startling exactness, I find the terrain wooded and green. This has forced me to rethink my Lenten practices. I've decided to keep the fast by giving up things that distract or deaden; I'm taking a break from movies, TV (no Downton Abbey), and fictional narrative. I've given up these things because sometimes I use them as an opiate; I use them when I want to be removed from the Real, and in those moments I lose awareness. I'm resisting the urge to curl up with a good book and shut out the obvious.

I'm trying to learn to focus and to notice: primarily with poetry and the Bible. Poetry is important to this process because I can't read it in a hurry, and though I do get lost in a poem, it's not an inattentive absence.

This week, I've been reading Mary Oliver's The Leaf and the Cloud. I'm going to read it over and over again, though it's a 55 page poem, until I absorb it wholly. It's a helpful piece, so far, because in it Oliver roves through the glories of existence.

This Lent I'm working on two things: 1) Thankfulness, and 2) An awareness of the Real. Sometimes I forget how beautiful the world is. The Leaf and the Cloud has been helpful because it reminds me that there are things like swans, grass, and foxes. Oliver reminds me that there are, even on this broken planet, wonders like the "first egg with a tapping from inside."

A Lenten devotional I recently read said that after desert wandering comes thanksgiving. Therefore, one should either be holding on to God in the desert, or bursting with praise for being brought safely to the oasis on the other side. It's time for me to say thank you.

When I think of reality, I think of sad, prosaic things. No one ever says, "you need to face reality, come and look at this sweet little bird chirping on this branch." We use the word reality to represent the harshness of life. All is bitter, acerbic, acidity. But do you know what? Today I waited for the bus underneath a beautiful tree. It had a smooth trunk, curvy branches, and bunches of pink blossoms. Huge, black bumblebees were drinking its nectar, and the sky above it was so blue. That's reality.

Most importantly, if God is the Fount of Existence, and he is, then I need to be most aware of him. Most of my consciousness is spent on things that are not real, things that do not matter, things that don't push me to abide in God. Work, and public transportation, and grocery shopping, and checking my email, and filing my taxes, and getting up early every morning, and taking out the trash is not real. Clothes shopping, and grading papers and, balancing my checkbook, and reading Charles Dickens is not real. God is real. I don't think it's wrong to escape into film or literature, but the Beautiful is always in the room. What if, sometimes, I was more hospitable?

“Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.”

This is where I am, I choose Lent because I want to see ministering angels and birds newly hatched. I want to be familiar with the vigorous habits of bumblebees. I want to see it all and say thank you.

THANKS
W.S. Merwin
Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow for the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water looking out
in different directions.

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
looking up from tables we are saying thank you
in a culture up to its chin in shame
living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you
over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the back door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks that use us we are saying thank you
with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable
unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things, and give me life in your ways.

Lenten Preparations

I'm trying to decide what I should give up for Lent. This will be my second year actually observing all forty days. It's so strange to consider giving up something I'd rather keep. It's also strange because I remember how very endless Lent felt last year, and how the best part of that experience, was growing in an awareness of my own wickedness. It's terrible to contemplate one's faults. But, this is the point I think. I want to give up an unnecessary thing that I have come to believe is necessary. Something I turn to for comfort, entertainment, or solace instead of turning to God, or simply sitting in the presence of my own emptiness. There are some options spinning around in my head right now, but I sometimes find it hard to choose wise self-denial over masochism. I also learned last year that fasts really reconfigure human relationships. If I give up, say, going to the movies, or eating out, then I'm denying pleasures for other human beings besides myself. Lent is great, I tell you, because it also made me aware that my actions happen in community. Maybe I should just decide to do everything more slowly. I want this year to be about slowing down in meaningful ways. I want to calmly savor life, instead of swallowing it whole and running for the door.

Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things, and give me life in your ways.

My Dream Job