Lent Happens

Lent is drawing to a close as we enter Holy Week. Easter is now only a week away. Part of me would like to be able to say that I spent the last several weeks engaging in regular acts of contemplation and meditation as part of my Lenten discipline. But, as usual, "life happens" and some of the things I had hoped to "accomplish" during this Lenten season fell by the wayside because my life happens to be extremely busy right now. I realize, however, that while life is happening, Lent itself continues to happen as well...in and around, under and above all the other "stuff" of life. My spiritual reflections continued to take place right there in the mix of all the crazy busy-ness of the many other life demands with which I've been wrestling. I just didn't have the time to write about it at the time--a source of frustration for me on more than one occasion!

I just returned from a week in Oregon, spending time with my family and getting some much needed respite. Originally my trip was only supposed to be five days long, but car troubles extended my time away by three extra days. Without a doubt, those extra days were exactly what my spirit and psyche needed in order for me to return back to Seattle feeling much more centered and in better touch with myself again. Actually, I think it has more to do with returning with a better focus, rather than feeling more in touch with myself. Nothing about me has changed, and nothing about my general life circumstances have changed; but, our attitudes and outlook and focus on life and self have everything to do with how we see, hear, feel, think, live and breathe. When those things get off track, it's easy to feel like I've lost touch with myself even though I haven't really gone anywhere.

I've been back several days now, and in spite of having to deal with the costly side-effects of being away even longer than planned, it's easy to recognize that I'm in a much better space than I was before I left. Yesterday as I was paying attention to this change in my spirit I couldn't help but smile to myself as I connected these events to a foretaste of the promise of Easter. I like how I phrased it in my last post: "Easter has never failed me." Again, here is an example of how my life often feels so in sync with the liturgical calendar. I began to think of how the church calendar is like an itinerary. It gives times and points directions as well as provides a brief synopsis of the places we will go when we arrive. While our experiences on this journey are sure to be unique and widely varied, we are at the same time participating in something of a universal story. And we can visit the same places repeatedly, experiencing it differently each time. I have been to Easter before. At least 36 times, if you want to think in literal terms, but I think Easter also happens at many other metaphorical times. (As an aside, "time" as a concept is one that still confounds me in many ways--but that's a whole other blog post!)

I have been to Easter before. Still, as I look down at my itinerary and see that we reach the destination of Easter in only a week, something of a child-like energy of hopeful, expectant excitement begins to rise up from the deepest part of my being. Even though I've been there before, the excitement still feels as if I will be seeing Easter again for the first time--delightful surprises await me in the days ahead! Easter is a place that you can visit an infinite amount of times and still experience something new with each trip. My self-awareness of the rejuvenation of my spirit after having been away is one of the markers on my itinerary--it announces that we are about to reach this long awaited destination. Lent is an incredibly rich place with lots to see and experience, but nobody goes to Lent to stay there. Nobody. If you don't continue your trip on to Easter then there's no real reason to have visited Lent in the first place.

Part of my excitement lies in wondering what Easter miracles are about to unfold in my life. I am poised and ready for some known transitional changes of sorts, and it's refreshing to be in a space again where there is an influx of positive energy towards whatever it is that will unfold in my life in the days ahead.

Of course, we still have to journey through Holy Week itself, before we arrive at Easter. You can't get to the Easter Resurrection without going through the cross event. This very week is the most dramatic part of the Jesus story, and, as my pastor commented this morning, it is in Holy Week that we "enter the deepest mysteries of God's love for us." And this brings me to the topic of my next post: what my Lenten journey this year has taught me about love.