The Great Lenten Ass-Kicking
So far, this Lenten Season, I have had my ass kicked. Or, to use the active-voice: I am a spiritual "soup-sandwich" as my brothers would say. For me, this has meant many fraught moments, "What if our financial aid package is bleak?" Or just having put away 2 baskets of laundry, finding a pile of dirty clothes I overlooked. Usually, I think it's distasteful-- ramblings about domestic matters, whiny rants about the cost of things. I find, though, that my nerves and my spirit are frayed and scatter-shot. I have found myself in tailspins of unbelief and dark spirals of blame-shifting.
The Bible says that if you are fasting you should wash your face and groom yourself, so as not to make a show of your Spiritual exercise. But frankly, I need help. My sacrifice this Lent has been to try and avoid useless spending. It sounds easy enough. But I am beginning to see how much I do it and by not doing it beginning to see how much time it required. Anyway, I am not trying to make a show of it but like Meredith says in Yoga: Notice your own thoughts without judgement. I am able to witness where my mind goes when in neutral: Anthropologie dresses, Indian bedspreads, thrifted tea cups. Are the Orla Kielys in at Target? Have the little down jackets gotten marked down at REI? The precious real-estate in my mind is so densely populated with crazy consumeristic fetishes!
The best illustration is this: On Ash Wednesday, the girls and I met Geoff at Raven Hill Chapel for his school's ecumenical service. It was a beautiful and spare service. We were invited to reflect, to turn a new page, to allow God to show us things afresh. Anyway, I realized later that my ashes were imposed on my forehead not in the center, just above the eyebrows. My ashes were off to the side, my cross that the reverend smudged onto my forehead was actually more above my right eyebrow. Later, I stood in our bathroom mirror, Calliope systematically stuffing cottonballs into the shampoo bottle and Clara pedaling my sewing machine like an elliptical. Seeing the Cross askew like that, I had to laugh, this is exactly where I am right now. "From dust you came, and to dust you shall return," said the minister. How fast the pace of our life just now, may I hold still even briefly.
The Bible says that if you are fasting you should wash your face and groom yourself, so as not to make a show of your Spiritual exercise. But frankly, I need help. My sacrifice this Lent has been to try and avoid useless spending. It sounds easy enough. But I am beginning to see how much I do it and by not doing it beginning to see how much time it required. Anyway, I am not trying to make a show of it but like Meredith says in Yoga: Notice your own thoughts without judgement. I am able to witness where my mind goes when in neutral: Anthropologie dresses, Indian bedspreads, thrifted tea cups. Are the Orla Kielys in at Target? Have the little down jackets gotten marked down at REI? The precious real-estate in my mind is so densely populated with crazy consumeristic fetishes!
The best illustration is this: On Ash Wednesday, the girls and I met Geoff at Raven Hill Chapel for his school's ecumenical service. It was a beautiful and spare service. We were invited to reflect, to turn a new page, to allow God to show us things afresh. Anyway, I realized later that my ashes were imposed on my forehead not in the center, just above the eyebrows. My ashes were off to the side, my cross that the reverend smudged onto my forehead was actually more above my right eyebrow. Later, I stood in our bathroom mirror, Calliope systematically stuffing cottonballs into the shampoo bottle and Clara pedaling my sewing machine like an elliptical. Seeing the Cross askew like that, I had to laugh, this is exactly where I am right now. "From dust you came, and to dust you shall return," said the minister. How fast the pace of our life just now, may I hold still even briefly.
posted by Maria at
9:17 PM
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