returning thanks for my Lenten lapses...

Seems that even in the most uneventful Lenten fast a glimmer of grace is revealed. To be sure, sometimes I am not attentive and miss the gift completely. Other times, despite whatever fog or funk I happen to be lost in, I catch sight of the light and am able to give thanks. Then there are those moments when I've been on edge in elevated expectation - which is really just another distraction - desiring deeper intimacy with the sacred than is possible for me at this time. All of which is to say, every Lent brings a blessing if I am quiet enough to receive it. This poem by Carrie Newcomer suggests this is true for most of our lives:

So much of what we know
Lives just below the surface.
Half of a tree
Spreads out beneath our feet.
Living simultaneously in two worlds,
Each half informing and nurturing
The whole.
A tree is either and neither
But mostly both.
I am drawn to liminal spaces,
The half-tamed and unruly patch
Where the forest gives way
And my little garden begins.
Where water, air, and light overlap
Becoming mist on the morning pond.
I like to sit on my porch steps, barn jacket and boots
In the last long exhale of the day,
When bats and birds loop in and then out,
One rising to work,
One readying for sleep.
And although the full moon calls the currents,
And the dark moon reminds me
That my best language
Has always emerged out of the silence,
It is in the waxing and waning
Where I most often live,
Neither here nor there,
But simply
On the way.
There are endings and beginnings
One emerging out of the other.
But most days I travel in an ever present
And curious now.
A betwixt and between,
That is almost,
But not quite,
The beautiful,
But not yet.
I’ve been learning to live with what is,
More patient with the process,
To love what is becoming,
And the questions that keep returning.
I am learning to trust
The horizon I walk toward
Is an orientation,
Not a destination.
And that I will keep catching glimpses
Of something great and luminous
From the corner of my eye.
I am learning to live where loss holds fast
And where grief lets loose and unravels.
Where a new kind of knowing can pick up the thread.
Where I can slide palms with a paradox
And nod at the dawn,
As the shadows pull back

And spirit meets bone.

The gift that kept coming to me during this year's Lenten fast was that Lent is both a time when I lift up my intentions of prayer and compassion to the Lord, and, then mostly fail to follow through. Yes, I mean fail. Fail to make much linear or spiritual progress with "praying all ways." Fail to stay on task. Fail to strengthen the compassion within that I'm so eager to share. Even fail to remember what I vowed to accomplish. 

Now let me be clear: failing and missing the mark during Lent is not something new to me, ok? I've been very successful at failing to keep my Lenten fast for decades. The gift in this year's failure was that my distractions, disappointments, and derailments were a part of how Lent is supposed to unfold. Fr. Jim McDermott of America Magazine writes:

A certain sense of failure during Lent is actually a good thing. In part, it reminds us that Lent is not a home renovation show. The primary goal of the season is not self-improvement; we are not here to fix up our own personal backsplash. We are trying to open ourselves to a deeper relationship with our friend and savior, Jesus. Our inability to forgo chocolate or be nicer for six weeks might very well frustrate us (and sometimes others as well). But in Lent, we are not doing those things for their own sake but out of a hope that they will help us to be less walled off from God and others.

So, unlike years past when frustration and shame became the rule of the day as Lent ended and the Triduum approached, I can give thanks to God that my life is vulnerable, open, and incomplete. Grace is NOT about what I can accomplish. It's a blessing freely shared by the source of all love. Today my prayer has included watering and admiring the mystery of how rapidly our pole beans and cucumbers have grown from seeds in less than a week's time. It's been to rake up more of last year's leaves and discover the blue bells and first dafodils of the season showing up in their glory. And connecting with loved ones online - in the US and later tonight in Canada - for a contemplative cleansing ritual in remembrance of Christ's new commandment: Love one another as I have loved you. As a servant. In humble solidarity. Paying attention to the small details of grace all around you. 

Tomorrow, after our L'Arche Stations of the Cross zoom, we'll head to Brooklyn to celebrate the Feast of the Resurrection. Two years ago, at the start of the pandemic, we marked Holy Thursday with our grandchildren by zoom, too. Here's Ms. Anna at 2 washing the feet of her dolls. What a delight...