Lent and Such -

 Although I'm not Catholic, I love learning about and participating in customs and traditions and rituals of other faiths and cultures. This year Lent began yesterday and ends on April 14. This year for Lent I am: 

Adding Yoga to my morning. 

Spending two minutes meditating each day. 

Not buying in to anyone's crap (see New Year's Resolution). 

Removing the panic of must-do, must-have. 

Wait - Lent is about self-sacrifice, giving up, repentance, self-reflection, to be closer to God. And that is what I intend to do - giving up my "Must's" and giving to my "Self." 

Tuesday I read, 

Meditation

We’re going to be taking our time this Lent. Hurry can wound a questioning soul.¹ And many of us have questions about how to integrate and reimagine practices and observances like Lent, particularly if even the words ‘repent’ or ‘sin’ or ‘fasting’ only conjure up negative emotions and experiences. So even if you have felt like you are in a rush to name your fast from one thing and repent of another, I invite you this Ash Wednesday to simply commit to a beginning.

Deep breath.

Here you are, at the beginning of something. Isn’t that a sacred place to be?

You don’t have to have it all figured out. You certainly don’t need to know where you will end up by the end of this experience. But being willing to begin takes great courage especially when your heart is a bit battered and broken.

A lot of us are entering into Lent exhausted and scared, sad and angry. Let’s bless your real self and your real feelings and this world’s real moment all careening into a sacred season without pretence or performance for once.

And let’s just begin together, shall we?

When our four kids were tinies, I found that when they were distraught or upset or hurt (which happens more than you might think with toddlers) that it helped if I simply reflected back to them what they are feeling, almost as a validation. It could be as simple as: “You want to stay at the park, you’re sad that we have to go.” Or, “You fell and hurt yourself, it really hurts, you poor lamb.” Even, “You are mad because you wanted to play with that toy. I can see that.” Hiccups and snotty noses and tears usually turned towards rest, towards calm or resolution, towards their mum’s arms.

This can seem counter-intuitive - most of us have an instinct to correct or reason or distract or (my personal favourite) aggressively cheering up. If you need a silver lining to be found, I’m your gal. Remarkably, no one has ever magically become fine simply because they are told “you’re fine, it’s fine, everything’s fine” by this Enneagram Nine.

Yet I saw in those years how the then-tinies relaxed and exhaled when I named and affirmed their experience in recognition of their suffering - yes, you are sad; yes, this hurts; yes, I can name with you what you feel and love you in it. I remember how they leaned in, craving my acknowledgement of their pain, that naming, before they could even begin to turn towards healing or rising.²

It can be utterly exhausting to live in a world that relies on performance and pretence and perfection. I don’t know who has landed at this point in our collective apocalypse without wounds and bruises. There is literal war raging. We’ve lost people we love to a pandemic or politics or both. Our world is groaning and we are groaning, too. We can no longer pretend to be fine - it is too costly.

Telling the truth is its own holy comfort. Lent gives you room for the satisfaction of simply naming things as they are - including ourselves. It’s Mother God’s arms holding you as you admit that you and this world are not fine, in order to be able to rise in faith, in hope, in justice, towards the co-creation of making things right…eventually. Just not yet...

Sounds like just what I need. What about you?