Checking In

There's nothing more deceptive, I think, than the feeling you get on the day after Ash Wednesday. Like almost every year, I was up very early to eat breakfast. I went to bed early Wednesday night because when fasting is new to me again I suddenly get tired very quickly. So, being the Latin rite Catholic that I am, I was making my eggs with ham and enjoying breakfast by 6am. One day of fasting, especially when you aren't doing it any more, doesn't seem so bad. 

Then Friday comes and I realize Easter isn't until half way through next month.

So I have to ask myself: how accustomed am I, really, to running on my own steam? 

Frankly, Lent brings up specters of thorny questions for me. Once I got to a certain place in my spiritual life, say, in my early 20s or so, I acted like I believed God was happy if I was miserable. Or that he liked to see me kick my humanity in the shins, and laugh when said humanity started to cry. I did see this kind of behavior modeled for me by a former pastor I had (in my non-denom days) who very intentionally changed the verse of Scripture to "If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray, and turn from their pleasurable ways (not wicked ways, you see), then I will hear from heaven, and forgive their sin and heal their land." It was interesting, because basically what he said in doing that stated a) I don't have any wickedness to turn from, but also b) pleasure is wicked, and displeasing to God, so really I am wicked.

There is a lot in religion, faith, Christians -- whatever term you want to use that means "us, not them," that perpetuates garbagy thinking, brokenness. I don't blame it on a religious system, except where sound theology is just lacking. I blame it on the fact that we spout us when we should be speaking the Word. Probably more on that thought in days to come.

So, specters. If I run on my own steam, I'm likely to start tripping over them.

My task here is to stand under the word "Be holy, for I, the Lord, am holy." And the extremely vital thing in that equation is self-knowledge. I'm hearing this statement addressed to me, and I am a particular person, not generic humanity. I have a history, I have a soul of a certain shape, a body of a certain age, a color, an interiority, a mission, a call all my own. 

Also when I was in my 20s, I was very aware of this fact, that I wrote into a song: "I cannot find the way for me by looking at anyone but Jesus. That feels so out of sync with the way of the world." I am not very conscious anymore of feeling like a red marble in a sea of yellow marbles. I've come long distances in accepting myself and soaking in the respect of my daily companions, especially in my church circle. That is all very much at peace. I don't get as emotionally stung, in a positive way, when I am acknowledged for who I am, and I think it pleases God that this is normal, at least within that social context. 

I do yearn, though, I do ache. I do long for more. When I hear "be holy," it's like I feel my spirit stretching forward, wishing it could go further, really with groans that words can't express -- not even to myself. What I think of is all the birthing scenes I've been watching on Call the Midwife lately. It isn't a mental process. I can't sit down an figure it out, or make a plan to carry it out as work. It's actually helpful to realize that, as thinking and working are two of the most natural reflexes to me. It's a tad scary to feel without these "helps." In fact, it's hard to even get quiet enough to allow myself to feel the ache. That's a little surprising to me, because I also like silence. But interior and exterior silence are not the same thing, for certain. 

So my check in conclusion is, when I feel a yearning for more, for a fruit-bearing closeness, for traffic across the bridge that is my life between the divine and the human, there is a dynamism at work that is bigger than just me. Cooperating with the life Jesus brings forth is a work to enter into.