So I'm not doing lent this year....

So I'm not doing lent this year. And it's kind of breaking my heart. But I just can't seem to find the energy to get there.  I feel surprised and caught off guard by it's arrival, which makes me cry because I realize how hard this year has been, and how I haven't been living with any time frame reference, pagan or liturgical. It reminds me how I'm just living each day as it comes, because that's all this little heart can handle. When a measure of time arrives, and I reflect, even for an instant, I realize how vast the changes are, how far I am from the person I was and know, and I feel a little overwhelmed, and a little lost, and a little wonder.

And maybe I don't feel the need for lent, because this whole half a year felt like one big lent, one big giving up and making space. And how do you make space when all there is is space? How do you make more room, when all there is is empty room? Empty, quiet, unknown expanse.

And so I cook. I cook in my quiet, in my expanse. I create in the silence. And today I ventured into a new unknown I'm making some sourdough culture. The dough feels like my soul. It's slow, it needs room to breathe, kept at room temperature, in glass not plastic, not sealed tight, but with a cloth, feeding every 12 hours, for seven days, and then, then we can make sourdough, rosemary, cheese crackers. But we have to wait, not rush it, let it ferment into something wonderful. It feels holy. Like an embodied lent, a visual reminder, that even though I might not be doing lent, maybe Christ is still participating, still silently hoovering over the scatteredness of my soul, still feeding, and nourishing in his own patient way.

And so maybe I don't need to freak out so much about missing it, about skipping out on something holy because chances are Christ will still be there Easter morn. And maybe that's what grace is, maybe grace is Easter without lent. A risen Christ without a longing people. A sacrificial Christ for the indifferent. A finding Christ, for those too weary to search. Maybe.  Maybe his grace really does go that far.

Because it's been a little while and you might need a Sunday morning poem: kaleidoscoping my soul

I don't know if you ever get the feeling of being stuck inside yourself! But I do. When that happens it feels like completely agony.  And with all this break down in faith I've been going through, processing has been a nightmare, I've felted limited and at the mercy of a confined vocabulary.  But every so often, every so often it gets unlocked. Sometime in the last two months one of the pastors at my church prayed for me and used the word "kaleidoscope". Truth: I don't remember anything else he prayed, but I remember that word, because it unlocked a whole new vocabulary that unclogged my soul just a little bit more.  I've painted it, talked about it, and now, this morning, this rainy, mild morning I'm going to share a little poem about it, because I can, because I think there's other people out there that get stuck inside themselves. And if you're stuck today, one day, hopefully soon, someone will give you a word, or you will see a picture and you'll find yourself unlocking just a little bit more. But in the mean time, enjoy a little poem:

Kaleidoscope Agony 

Kaleidoscope agony
circling, turning, writhing symmetry.
Adjusting, recalibrating: Beholding your glory?

Wonder, entrapment
No sparsity of colour.
Intoxicating, tantalizing: moment of wonder?

Clouds of unknowing, gravity-less roaming.
Uncharted, Ordained?
Holy quiets, blazing thunder.

Kaleidoscoping soul
inviting home my scattered heart.
Holding tight, whispering hope.
Will it eventually be alright?

Christmas Eve (Midnight Mass)

And I'm not sure about you, what you're day has been like, but I am sure about me and what my day has been like.  Moments of calm serenity mixed with hear wrenching tears. And the truth is, no matter how perfect a person looks on the outside, no matter how straight the hair, or how air-brushed the make-up, life is hard and has really hard moments at times. And today was a massive pile of both wonder and desert.  Christmas is hard for me because I don't really have traditions.  For at least the past ten years no two Christmases have looked the same. No routine, no familiar home.  No annual Christmas jokes. It's different.  Always different. And for someone who likes routine, the lack of it makes me feel lost. Lost and trampled.

But this baby started a tradition for herself last year, for her family, for her family of one. Midnight mass.  Cause no matter where in the world I am, or what town, or what city, there will be a Catholic Church and they will have midnight mass. And I might march there alone, but it will always be there, my little tradition, my little feeling of belonging.  Because there is just something about driving the streets of a city in the middle of the night. There's just something about sneaking off to Church with whole crowd of others at an ungodly hour. And there is just something about singing carols, in a bright lit room that just welcomes the Christ child day in a way that makes sense to my soul.

You should try it.  Just once.  Just one Christmas, and see what it does for your soul, see what it does for you. Because Christ came and everything changed, so why wouldn't we drive down to Church in the middle of the night to welcome it. To welcome him.


I'll leave you with a little Christmas blessing from North Umbria:

The blessing of Christ 
comes to cave and to hillside.
His coming is mercy
and kindness and joy.
Hope is born 
in this, His birthing. 

Merry Christmas.
P.s. There's still time to hit up midnight mass!

And I've meant to come here a lot sooner than I'm getting here. I've got some stuff I want to write about, but it's not quite time. And in the mean time, I'm gonna just write a little prayer. A little Monday night one.

Christ,
The living one,
the risen one,
the human one,
 the holy one,

Break wide the caverns of my heart. Let them be flooded with your life giving light and gladness.
Let the weary ones rejoice, let the anxious ones find rest.

Giver of all good things, live in us tonight. Replenish our faith, encourage our loves, disperse your unrequited grace.  Gather our scattered parts, heal us whole.

We love you our other,
we love you our holy.

Amen.

Lost count of the Days

The crazy thing about words is how powerful they are.  I'm not really sure why I'm surprised, or stunned, yet again, because it's not like it's something new.  But this morning I though I'd share some old November poetry with you, and a song that I can't listen to without some tears falling.  Sometimes when I go back and read stuff from the past I'm surprised at the beauty.  Last year I wrote a prayer everyday, and when I've looked back, it's no wonder I had a little breakdown, this girl prayed some fierce things. I prayed myself right into this very spot.  Words are powerful people, and even more powerful when they're prayer words. Don't ask me how it works, I just know I feel their tremors.

So heres a little treat from November:

You're inviting me to wonder here,
And I didn't see it coming.

I trenched myself in,
and you opened the back-door.

I run and you find me.
I hide and you seek me out.

You're reckless, absurdly reckless.
Unchart and undo me, oh loveliest one.

How about a second one, I missed yesterday:

End to endless
Light to lightness
Irreverently Holy
Paradox city.

Uncharted you lead me
Unopened you reach me
helplessly hurting
hauntingly hungry.

Falling you find me
Fainting you reach me
Inward you invite me: to the caverns of my soul. 

Check out this link below, this song completely rocked me in the best way possible:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFkDqQtfs0w

Day 13 ish

And so that's not going to be happening again anytime soon!  That standing up in front of a whole, large, bunch of people and reading the contents of my soul. That brewing storm, that honest confession, that moment of vulnerability.  This baby is tired to the core, stretched to the limits, and ready for some rest, some hiding and some quiet. This baby is just gonna stick to writing for a while, and leave all that public speaking to some others.  

It's weird how you change as life goes on.  One moment something gives you life and the next minute it drains you right out!  Cause this girl used to love standing up there, pouring her soul out, speaking, reading and praying.  I used to get a high from it, a high that would leave me soaring for days.  And this is the first time I've managed to stand in front of more than a dozen people and share some thoughts since my little breakdown, and this time it drained me, and rather than soaring, I'll be hibernating to recovery.    

And it's weird to stand there and lead a prayer when it feels like a power outage of faith in my own soul.  Weird to invite people to advent, when I'm not really sure I believe in miracles anymore.  It's weird.  It's awkward.  And this baby doesn't want to fake it, but she doesn't want to lie it either. And I'm not so sure how to stand in the middle of those whirlpools.  How to navigate this tide shift. 

I'm not throwing it all out, I'm just not keeping it all either. I'm letting the sand of faith just settle in my soul, letting it find it's own resting place. And I'm just gonna keep opening my weary hands and my broken heart and just wait to see what happens. And maybe that in and of its self shows a little flicker of faith. I'm not really sure. And I'm not too concerned.  But I want peace in my soul, and rest for my heart. So if you think of it, just send up a little prayer for this one. Cause she could use all the prayers she can get! 

Day 11

I love mornings!  And not always in a chipper-I'm alive-and now everyone-wants to- shoot-me kind of way.  Sometimes, but not always.  Mostly I just love mornings, because they're quiet, new, it's like a blank page, anything is possible.

But I also love being awake before everyone else. I like dwelling in the unhurried black. When the whole earth is still quiet.  Life feels slower.  I'm waiting on yeast to rise this morning. It's my roomate's birthday and sometimes you just need to be woken up with coffee and fresh cinnanamon buns! So I'm waiting, waiting for something to happen that only takes time.

I recently have been reading a book interpreting the different parables by Thomas Keating.  I love that man, I wish I could study under him and his contemplative, Benedictine ways.  Anyway, he interpreted the parable of the yeast at least three different ways. The common theme, however, had to do with the yeast being viewed as a dirty or unclean. Essentially saying that the kingdom of God is going to break in where we least expect it, in the dark, in the dirty, in the unclean. Here's a couple of quotes:

"Look for it [the kingdom of God] in the most unexpected places.  According to the parables, the kingdom of God is free to appear anywhere, any time, and under any guise.  It does not fit into our presuppositions or expectations, and still less, our demands.  In fact, id deliberately removes, prop by prop, everything holding up our ideas of the nature of the kingdom and where it is to be found" (43).

"The kingdom consists of finding God in our disappointments, failures, problems, and even in our inability to rid ourselves of our vices"(55)

"It [the kingdom of God] becomes present to us and in us by our consent and by the dispositions that the Holy Spirit instills within us, the chief of which is faith that God is truly and secretly intervening to heal us despite any or all appearances to the contrary" (56).

Christ,
Rise in us this advent, like yeast in dough.
Let your kingdom come in the least expected, most marginalized areas of our lives.
We invite your coming kingdom, we invite your reigning kingdom.
Move in our hearts, move in our lives, move in us even when we've lost all faith, all hope.
We love you Lord, Jesus, live loud in our hearts!