Reflections on Lent and the coming of Eastertide

Reflections on Lent and the coming of Eastertide

Immediately preceding the start of Lent, I devised my extensive Lenten plan. It would include the following to name a few: Alcohol will not consumed on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, participation in daily prayer will occur three times a day, one extra Eucharistic service will be attended weekly, Spiritual direction will be participated in every other week.  It read more like a masochistic list of to-do’s than anything that would bring me closer to God.

Around the same time I was asked to write a Lenten Devotional for the Parish publication. The summary of that devotional promised that I would attempt to leave behind my child-like ways and begin sharing my spiritual self with others. This promise also seemed on the masochistic side for my personality type. Rob uses the term, “religiously squeamish.” And I think in a lot of ways this sums it up for me.

Ash Wednesday came and I was thrust into Lent. I attempted to carry out my fiendish plan.

 I succeeded for a couple of days.

Then death happened.

Then it happened again and again and again.

Someone young who was a close friend earlier in life went first.

A best friend’s mother was next, then the mother of our priest and finally a parishioner, gone from their earthly manifestations.

I would not consider some of these people especially close, in fact I didn’t even know one of them, but the effect their deaths had on those who I love was a blow to my emotional state and my overall trust in God.

The most personally intense loss was my best friend’s mother, Barb. The final 6 weeks of Barb’s life served as a time that my friend and I would talk daily on the phone. My friend’s unceasing complaint was that many of her other friends had turned away, not knowing what to say or just being uncomfortable with the whole death thing.

Most of the time I didn’t know what to say either but I cried with her and easily laughed at irreverent jokes to break the tension of the whole situation.

The weeks were arduous. One day Barb would rebound in a miraculous way and the next was a deathwatch that was seemingly endless.

The day finally came when her mother passed and the ensuing phone conversation was deep and loving and awful and wonderful all at the same time. Some four weeks later I provided an impromptu eulogy for her mother at a memorial service.

All of this, along with the deaths of the others, all seemed too much for me.

My Lenten practice was shot and in a lot of ways it really didn’t matter. God was doing Her own work in me.

Holy week served up a whole different set of human pain. Wrenching revelations from friends combined with my typical day-to-day mingling in human suffering at my work netted an Easter that couldn’t come fast enough.

But Easter always comes.

In these weeks following our paschal celebration, God has presented to me in ways that could only be explained by the Risen Christ.

First, my spiritual director gave me the smack down and insisted that I better learn to own my gifts (one of the reasons that I am talking right now) and secondly to get myself a ritual that could contain my emotions as well as my spirituality.

Next, a friend’s conversation spurred my interest in exploring my spiritual roots (as weak or dysfunctional as they may be).

Then, a book was sent my way that has been pivotal in encouraging me to accept my true self and not to try to be anyone else (a life-long task, I realize).

Finally, my best friend invited me to select some of her late Mother’s items so that I may have part of her in our home, a mystical gesture for sure.

These initial weeks of Eastertide I have felt and experienced the outpouring of God’s love at every turn: Getting someone to laugh at one of my ridiculous jokes, my children’s joy; silly, and fun and sincere conversations; A filling station attendant sharing with me her devotion to Mary.

My stupid, one-eyed dog has even been more present to me.

As I promised in the devotional, I will try to leave behind my childish ways and share my spirituality.  I was hoping this would serve as an invitation to those in our community and to myself to be more open and honest. I feel that this is my true Easter gift, the darkness of Lent giving way to the promise of renewal. I didn’t need that masochistic list after all.