And time sings.”
― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
I
promise that my ears are clear and that I’m not projecting my thesis on
each person I meet? but two weeks in to this Lenten season and it seems
a common theme I’m hearing from people is not What They’re Giving Up
this time ‘round but what they NEED to give up this time ‘round, which
is EVERYthing … not coffee, not chocolate, everything. Giving up beating
their heads against a wall by expecting different outcomes from
identical situations, giving up expecting perfection from people who are
ill-equipped to provide it, giving up beating themselves up for their
imperfections when they know all they need to do is put their plans in
to action … and it’s hilarious that the theme is already in the
Zeitgeist (sponsored by Walt Disney, ‘natch)
LET IT GO (from
FROZEN), sung brilliantly by
Adele Dazeem.
My husband and I spent the month before Lent this year, like you do,
in prayer and contemplation of what we thought God wanted this Lent to
look like, in our home and in our hearts. The Holy Spirit inspired my
husband to look at the use of sand in other parishes to signify Jesus’
journey through the desert and bring his experience in to our
meditations; some parishes actually replace the holy water in the
baptismal font with sand. It got me to pondering …
Father Steve Pankey,
Associate Rector at Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church in Foley, Alabama, has
a FANTASTIC blog I’ve followed for years called “
DRAFTING THEOLOGY, a blog about the bible”.
What it actually feels like to me is a blog from the innocent
viewpoint of a very loving, devoted, brilliant child who has been raised
all his life in an intimate, unconditionally loving relationship with
someone he knows is God and someone he knows is Jesus, and then at one
point in his life, someone gives Steve “Scriptures” written by people he
feels don’t really know the same people he does. Steve’s general
reaction to the passages is, <WHO are they TALKING about ! ! This
isn’t the God I know !> Steve will also wrestle with things God is
asking of him in certain portions of the Gospels, especially as he’s in
the final hours of writing his sermons each week. I encourage you to
follow his journey; it’s quite illuminating while being absolutely
delightful.
On “Temptation Sunday,” Father Steve
wrote:
Have
you ever felt envious or jealous toward Jesus? I mean, in about six
weeks’ time, as he’s sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemane, getting
arrested, and hanging crucified on a tree, we won’t wish we were him,
but this morning as we hear about his 40 days in the wilderness, maybe
you’re getting just a tinge of jealousy. Jesus’ wilderness experience
isn’t easy, but it is a once in a lifetime experience. Two-thousand
years later, the Church invites us into a 40 day wilderness experience
every year. Jesus was able to focus solely on his spiritual journey
during his time away. Lent happens in the midst of the busyness of life:
work, kids, grand kids on spring break, tax season, and, to add insult
to injury, just four days into Lent this year we’ve lost an hour of
sleep in the name of “Saving Daylight.” It probably isn’t rational, but
sometimes, I’m tempted to feel jealous of Jesus’ wilderness experience.
My personal experience with sand begins with some of my
first memories on Virginia Beach each summer with the whole family. The
sand is lovely, it’s shiny, but I hate how it gets in everything
(although I love months later when you’ll go to use a tote bag and find
sand hiding in it!). Sand is really just an impediment keeping me from
the ocean where I know the Holy Spirit is eager to wash away my cares
and worries with the sounds of the waves crashing against it, the misty
air rejuvenating my lungs, and the cleansing submersion as I renew my
Baptismal promises. (I know it’s psycho, har har, but I even renew my
Baptismal promises in the shower each morning DON’T JUDGE ME LOL !)
So sand separates me from my deepest wish, to be washed and cleansed
in the ocean. Sand is hot as blazes and if I don’t yet have my “summer
feet” it’s like a kiln turning my skin to clay. It’s also a workout!
Trudge is the vivid verb which comes to mind. Yet, once we take that
first step, the sand becomes an exfoliant; no $30 pedi or little fishies
needed to scrape or bite the callouses built up over my past journeys.
If I continue walking long enough, there will be no evidence of my past
left
on my feet, only fresh, clean, newly minted skin. Ah, but there’s the
rub (har har): I actually have to trek through the sand long enough for
it to become efficacious. I must endure the first uncomfortable
sensations to enjoy its benefits.
My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any
kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of
your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect,
so that you may be perfect, mature and complete, lacking in nothing. – James 1:2-4
There’s also probably going to be some sand in the winds
which come whipping across my face … there’s a hundred or so bucks
saved on a facial. But, O! the glow of a face having shed its winter
layer, fresh and pink and new.
One of the points of replacing the water at the baptismal font with
sand, for me, is chiefly to shake us out of what is, for some, the sin
of our customs. I love singing the Hampton setting to the Creed SO
much, it fills me with SUCH joy and is ripe with acting opportunities
(“he sufffffered death … and was buried …”) and then the glory ! of the
angels singing the DESCANT over “…on the third day he rose again…”
Toward the end, however, if I’m not really “feeling church” that day, or
I’m having a particularly uninspired worship experience, there’s a
point where we make the sign of the cross and I’m like, oh, here comes
some more Anglo-Catholic choreography …
Now I know it’s a vicious judgment on my part, but sometimes I watch
people come in to church and dip their fingers in the font as casually
as dropping off keys on a counter. There’s a casual presumption that
there is going to be water there; just like the assurance that there is
going to be a bottom to the glass they’re about to pick up or that the
seat they’re lowering themselves on to is going to hold their weight. It
just looks like a thoughtless habit. There’s no visible recognition of
the act, there’s no sensual response to the tactile experience of the
coolness of the water, or glimmer of the spiritual significance of the
Holy Spirit moving the surface of the water in the beginning of creation
… it’s just somethin’ ya gotta do. Lent is about shaking off habits,
isn’t it? Evaluating and meditating on our spiritual practices? And the
thought of coming in to church and hitting a pool of sand when you’re
used to an entirely different experience would sure wake you up to
realize there’s been a change in liturgical seasons, huh?!
Another reason that I love the idea so much is that it puts me in
concert with the struggling man, Jesus. He’s fighting to make sense of
his dual nature and the path of discernment for what God has called him
to do. You’ve had those times when God calls you to do something and
your only reaction is one of many: “I’m sorry, you can’t possibly mean
me.” “You’ve GOT to be KIDDING me.” Or the ever popular, “Oh, HELZ no.” …
it’s so very rarely immediately the meek and “Christian” response of ”
I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “
May your word to me be fulfilled.”
The key, however uncomfortable, to accepting a newness from routine in
answer to God’s call is always that first blasted step. I can tell
myself my life would be so much better if I would practice my yoga
postures every day but it doesn’t mean a thing if I don’t actually get
off my keister and practice my yoga postures every day. It’s very easy
to pay lip service to
the observance of a holy Lent, by
self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial;
and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word but it’s an entirely other thing to have to work at getting to the cool ocean shore by having to trudge through the hot sand.
God doesn’t ask much of us … just the dedication of our whole heart
and being. One thing our church asks of us, however, is to step outside
of ourselves, to step away from ourselves, to cease all ritualistic,
repetitive, mindless behavior and EXAMINE it, each piece of it, possibly
to discard it forever, but, most urgently and importantly, to make sure
we know why we’re doing it; to make sure it’s the most healthy choice
for our most healthy existence, for that’s really all God wants for us:
our perfection. Not the “Christianist” kind of
I-Never-Sin-But-I’m-A-Sinner kind of perfection … but the serene,
lovely, purring-on-all-four-cylinders kind of idyllic perfection I
always dream of when we picture “…that heavenly country…”
Let’s join Jesus in his walk through the desert. Let’s take that
first step, allow ourselves to be beaten by the elements, allow our
natural and spiritual beings to slough off dead skin, mindless
articulations, patterns of a dead and spiritless life. Let’s come out
the other side of Lent with a revived awakening, a fresh outlook, a
recognition of the excitement of a brand new day, and a fresh awareness
of why we’re so deeply in love with God in the first place.
This post originally appeared on our parish's Lenten Blog
