My First Lent

It’s been a while since I’ve posted or haiku-ed, mostly due to obligations which have the annoying habit of interrupting my flow of creativity. These obligations are still here, and will be for another two months, but the clouds parted for a brief second today and the muse came calling. So I must obey, which is why you find me here - back at Healing Haiku.

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. I have never - not once in all my looong life - observed Lent in any kind of formal way. In fact, many times the only reason I knew it was Lent was because Luby’s cafeteria had a sign reminding customers it was Fish Friday. I happily took advantage of that, even though I wasn’t observing anything but my appetite.

As a child, Easter was my holiday - in all its Easter bonnet, white gloves, and new-dress glory. Easter was the day when the old passed away, the sun came out, and the air was filled with the smell of chocolate and excitement.

After I began working at a church, Easter took on a different kind of rhythm. It meant rising before sunup, driving 30-45 minutes for a sunrise service, then rushing back to church to work two or three more services. By the time I finally joined my family and the Easter dinner I bought two days earlier, I was wiped out. Easter became a day of exhaustion - not reflection or celebration.

After I left my job, church itself became complicated. Painful. Triggering. My relationship with formal church leadership shifted into something I didn’t recognize. Skepticism and cynicism had always belonged to other people, not me. And yet, I found myself skeptical of everyone and everything connected to church. What had once felt like a refuge, or at least a place I could be myself with those who I considered “family”, now felt like harm, abuse, and something I needed protection from. And what was even worse, I began to doubt my own ability to discern whether a place was healthy or harmful.

Fast forward two and a half years.

I now see the season of Lent, leading up to Easter, through a different lens. For me, it’s not about letting go of harmful places, people, or practices, or even letting go of harmful attitudes I’ve been harboring since I left my church. This Lent season is about watching hope rise from the ashes of what I once believed was my spiritual home.

I’ve been walking through the wilderness these 2.5 years - not a wilderness I chose, but one that was handed to me. A landscape that felt barren and useless for so long.

But I’m beginning to sense Lent, for me at least, is an invitation to notice a spiritual reversal happening inside me. Mourning softens into gladness. Bitterness loosens its grip into something like acceptance. Discouragement lifts, even now, to let in the light. I’m aware of new things budding inside me where once there was only ash. Even if I can’t yet name them, I sense their presence.

In this - my first Lent - I sift through the ashes of what once was, and find hope in the soot.

Lent

     Ashes, left over
     from the purging fires of
     tempests, dare me to

     hold onto shame and
     sadness. These ashes bear the
     marks of affliction - 

     God's fertilizer
     for the soul - burrowing deep 
     before the blooming. 

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