In Need of Lent

I am in sore need of Lent. I hate to admit that to myself or you, but it's true. I started out the year with zeal, and have managed to honor a few of my intentions to be more regular in prayer and meditation, to get back on the yoga mat, and to see at least one non-animated movie per month.

But just two months in, there has already been so much.

So much loss and pain. Dear friends losing spouses and siblings. Grieving the limits of other humans--whether friends, family members or colleagues-- to meet us and love us as we need. Others struggling mightily in mind, body and spirit.

So much fear and anxiety. About the state of our democracy, our faith communities, our planet. About the election. About my boys and what kind of parent I am. About whether there is enough of this or that.

And I have not really helped myself. Staying up late to watch the election returns, the State of the Union, the debates, the impeachment hearings, the occasional This Is Us episode (that wrecks me in a good way). Taking to Facebook throughout the day to be jerked around between inspiration and outrage. Consuming, consuming, consuming articles, podcasts, Facebook posts. Oscillating between wild hope and pure terror, totally strung out in between, yet going back for hit after hit after terrible hit.

I am weary and heavy-hearted, deeply anguished about our true state of the union (or dis-union as it were)

Enter Lent. A season to examine all the ways we've moved away from God, sought peace in the wrong ways and places, and done great harm to ourselves and others in the process. A season for admitting how much we all stand in need of mercy and compassion, in need of God who meets us with our broken hearts, tired bodies, strung out minds, promising new life and resurrection. A season for realigning our lives with the ways of God, acknowledging how we have once again gotten consumed with our own self-interests, while neglecting the needs and suffering of others.

In anticipation of Lent, our Parent Sunday School class talked about how we might honor this Lent with our families. We agreed that many of us had "given up" stuff in the past . . . chocolate, sugar, French fries. . . that may have felt like a hardship, but probably didn't draw us all that closer to God or others. And isn't that the point? What if we gave up something that is actually getting in the way of Love, of being truly present in our lives and relationships? What if we let go of whatever addictive habit is keeping us from seeing how God is already present to and loving on us?

It became clear to me that I need to give up checking my phone in every spare moment of every day. Which immediately pulls me out of the present moment and away from whatever dear one is with me. Which often brings on outrage or worry or an urgent sense that I must do something more, something different right this very minute.

It will not be easy. As I imagine we all do, I count on my phone for alarms, directions, email, Facebook, weather reports, kids' apps, news, even my meditation timer. But I'm wondering what it might feel like if I actually treated it like a phone, and not my fifth appendage. If I lay it down as the false idol it has become. I will take certain apps, including Facebook, off it for the season, confine my usage to certain times of the day. I am looking forward to bringing my awareness back to the present moment, where I am, where my loves are, where God is.

I am also aware that without having my distraction device strapped to me at all times, I may have to contend more fully with what is present within me . . these often unwelcome guests like grief, fear, and anger. In our relentless busyness, we often leave no space at all for actually feeling what we feel. And yet, as one of my spiritual mentors Richard Rohr says, if we do not learn how to transform our pain, we will transmit it. I wonder if this is a more honest way to understand our real state of the union. There is so much pain. Individually and collectively. And just denying it, numbing and distracting ourselves, pretending we are all fine or great, never been better, is not serving us well. We are wounded. And out of that woundedness, we are lashing out and wounding others right and left.

But we cannot heal what we do not feel. Cannot mend what we do not see as broken. Cannot rise with resurrection power without bearing our crosses.

So this Lent, I invite us all to stop and really take stock. What's really going on with us? What are we grieving? What's got us worried and strung out? What does our rage or anger tell us about what we are longing for? And how are we numbing or distracting ourselves, instead of feeling what we feel, and inviting God in to transform our pain, so that we don't keep transmitting it? What might we give up or let go so that we can be more present--to ourselves, our loved one ones, the groans of creation, and most importantly to the God just waiting to heal us and bring us to new life?

I invite you to consider joining me and others for the Sacred Pause retreat on Sunday, March 15, with a Lenten focus on The Sacred Work of Grief. Guided by Francis Weller's beautiful book, The Wild Edge of Sorrow, we will explore together his "Five Gates of Grief", and how tending our grief with compassion can bring us greater wholeness and vitality, renewing our spirits and restoring the soul of the world. As he writes, "To honor our grief, to grant it space and time in our frantic world, is to fulfill a covenant with soul-- to welcome all that is, thereby granting room for our most authentic life." You can read more below.

As always, if you are hungry for companionship on the spiritual journey, I invite you to consider spiritual direction, either in a one-on-one relationship or in one of the groups I offer. I'd welcome the opportunity to explore all these themes and more with you.

I pray your own Lenten journey will be meaningful and rich.

Grace and peace to you,

Kimberly