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?