Out of the Dark, Into the Light ~

This little purple-striped beauty broke through the ground in my garden a few days ago, just in time for Easter weekend.

She did what the season of Lent asked of her: she tucked herself away in the dark for awhile, she let herself be nourished by the stillness around her, she allowed for some isolation and waiting. And then, as if she could hear the church-bells start to chime out their glad anthem, she sprung out of her slumber in time as if to say "aren't I pretty?!"

Personal attentiveness to the season of Lent is a newer idea to me. I'd heard of such a thing when I was younger, but since these Lenten tales usually involved the surrender of something chocolaty, I just couldn't see myself going that far.

Awhile back, when I found myself dipping my toes into liturgical waters, waters with spiritual practices I found intriguing, I discovered I was more open to Lent and how it might look in my own life.

I didn't know where to begin. I asked around, I listened to homilies, I read a few tiny guidebooks, I listened to friends. The sweetest guidance I received came from a friend who told me that Lent could be whatever I wanted it to be, that it didn't have to be dictated by anyone else. She also offered that I didn't need to limit my thoughts to "giving something up". She offered that I could enlarge my Lenten practice, my experience, and hopefully my spirit, by "taking something on".  That's more like it.

This season, I did do a bit of letting go, but I let myself take something on as well. My tiny yard has quite a few bare spots asking for some attention, and I'd rather crowd out weeds than pull them, so I decided that I would plant one bulb every day during the season. If I did the math, that's 40 bulbs in 40 days.

The bulbs were planted at night, on my last run out to the yard with Maggie, right before tucking in. I liked the idea of planting in the dark, it felt holy and symbolic, like a true act of faith. What I didn't consider is that a girl with bad eyes who cannot see in the dark and who has the slightest kink in her short-term memory, would likely forget where she planted last night's bulb.

Now, with Lent behind us, this little purple-striped beauty will have others popping up out of the ground to join her in the garden. I imagine she's looking around for them just like I am. Since their planting was staggered, their debuts will be also. Here's where I might mention how great it will be that, with Lent lasting 40 days, I get to be dazzled by the sight of 40 separate plants showing off in my yard each morning, once a few more weeks go by. Here's where I might confess that Mags and I didn't make it out to the yard for planting every night. A few of my other Lenten practices were not marked by perfection either. Just check my Starbucks receipts and my recumbent bike odometer and you'll know what I mean. Ah well, the practice of Lent, the grace of Lent. Imperfection. I imagine that is the idea.

And yet, with Easter and its celebrations just a day away, there is more color in my yard, more color than there was when my priest gently applied ashes to my forehead and reminded me that I come from the dust. There is more hope, hope that comes from seeing what some waiting might give birth to. And there is more light, because even in the dark, it simply will not be overcome. It will, in good time, break through.

Thresholds ~

I've been carrying a card around with me for the past few months, a card from my dearest friend. The front is brightly spattered with primary colors, and a chalk-lettered cheer from a kiddo named Eli. It reads: "God, give me guts".  On the back, my friend wrote about waiting, change, and threshold crossing.

'Threshold' has not been a big part of my vocabulary. I mean, I've heard about brides being carried over the threshold (is that still a thing?) My oldest connection to the word comes from a memory that my middle sister vehemently denies to this day, but when we were little kids, maybe 7, 9, I asked her where babies come from, and she said "it starts at the wedding ceremony when the preacher says "you may now kiss the bride", and by the time the bride gets home and her husband carries her over the threshold, she's pregnant". I figured out all on my own that something musta happened between points A and B, but I just left it there.

There have been some threshold crossings for me lately. I do believe I am being carried over these, carried by words of kindness and courage and protection offered by people who know me best. And by God, who has been nudging me to go ahead and take some long waited for, long anxious-about steps. Bob Bennett, in his song, "Mountain Cathedrals", sings: "I'm eager and afraid at the same time to move from where I've been." Me too Bob, me too.

Thresholds can be so frightening, there's just no telling what eyes will see or a heart will feel on the other side. And yet, thresholds can hold all kinds of hope. Hope that the new thing that God may be doing in a life will be be just the cool drink of water we were so thirsty for (Isaiah 43:19)

The friend who sent me this card, also sent me some quotes from Irish poet John O'Donohue. I had the sweet privilege of hearing John speak a handful of years ago before his untimely death. He was at Trinity Cathedral in Portland, and between the beauty of that sanctuary and the beauty of his words and brogue, I experienced a deep stillness. Since then, seeking out his books is a constant line item on my 'to-do' list. His name is scribbled on that post-it-note-in-my-head of authors to search the aisles for when I visit Powell's Books. He's also on my go-to list when I am shopping Amazon.com and need just a few more bucks-worth of stuff to get free shipping. (I am one of those suckers who doesn't get the arithmetic of this arrangement enough to understand that the more I spend the less "free" the shipping is, but if I get John O'Donohue out of the deal, I'm in).

I seek out his voice whenever I can. Just yesterday, the morning felt hard, heavy, anxious. I got to work and popped an old Krista Tippett/On Being interview with John into my ear ("The Inner Landscape of Beauty"). A girl can get just about anything done when she's got an Irish poet calming her down.

In this interview, John was talking about thresholds. There are lampposts I look for to guide me in my spiritual becoming. When I come across the same idea over and again from different voices and encounters, what I see in that is a little light in the dark to help me find my way. Maybe God gets it that I can be the tiniest bit dense and distracted, so God kindly and gently brings me back to what I need to consider. And where I am now, given the light I've been offered,  I am considering thresholds.

In this interview, John writes that the etymology of the word "threshold" comes from "threshing", the word used to describe separating the grain from the husk.

(side note - I love discovering the origin of words. Had I a chance to do it over, I'd go to school to earn a degree in etymology. Given the economy, I still may work in an insurance cubicle, but I'd have that sweet diploma)

He goes on to say that a threshold becomes a place where we move into more fullness. And that the act of crossing a threshold allows for the healing of patterns of repetition that keep us caught.

There are reasons we get stuck, reasons we stay stuck. Reasons, good reasons, we decide to be more afraid than eager to move from where we've been. It serves us in some way. If nothing changes, nothing changes, and that can be like a heavy down quilt on a bone chilly night. Comfortable.

The steps I've taken over some thresholds lately have been encouraged by the threshold-crossing I see going on around me. I watch, either up close or from a distance, people I care about deciding that comfortable isn't so comfortable after all. To be brave instead of paralyzed. To choose healing over defiance. To be grain instead of husk.

A card from a friend, a cheer from a little boy, a truth from an Irish poet. Sometimes the simplest things can open a door that has been jammed shut for a lifetime.

 

I am pretty sure at this point in my life that my middle sister was mistaken about where babies come from.  But things do look and feel a little different on this side of the threshold, so I'm watching for more light from those lampposts to see what is trying to get born.

This Miserables Year ~

I’ve made an intentional choice this year to take on some misery, to allow heartbreak and desolation to be my daily companions.

I’m finally reading Les Mis.

I’ve seen the Broadway musical, watched the Hollywood movies, rented the 25^th anniversary PBS special, worn the Cosette t-shirt and sung ‘On My Own’ at the top of my lungs with my puppy dog staring at me curiously and whispering “oh my God” under her breath.

It was time to read the book.

I took a stab at reading it several years ago. A friend of mine is a voracious reader, and we were lamenting the lack of time or opportunity to be in a book group. So, we made up our own. We were meeting up for coffee once a month anyhow, so we decided to invite Monsieur Hugo to join us.

It turns out I like the idea of a book club.

The actual reading and preparation, the pressure to enter into the discussion, not so much. I was able to fake my way through the first few meetings, letting my friend do most of the talking, while I nodded thoughtfully and sipped my latte. But a few meetings into it, she began to press me for my insights on the classic story of law, grace and redemption. I knew I was busted when the best I could muster sounded something like this: “um, well, I really liked that part when that guy went to that place and saw that thing.”  We kept meeting for coffee after that, but Les Mis went back on the bookshelf.

I saw the newest film version this past Christmas. Hugh Jackman had me at “my name is Jean Valjean!” My sister brought her newly purchased e-reader to town for the holidays, and though I’d pledged to never support such a device, certain that I would not be one to contribute to the demise of the indie bookstore, there I was on New Year’s Day, in line at the B&N big-box, setting down the cash for my own.

Les Mis was my first e-book purchase. Successfully downloading an e-anything is cause for cake and balloons at my house, as I am not the savviest techie girl. So when I saw these beautiful words, ”download complete”, I ran my fingers over the smooth screen bearing the tiny Hugo image, fiddled with the back-light, figured out how to tap-tap just right to turn a page,  and dove into 1815 France.

I am reading Hugo on the bus. I have a short commute, but filling my head with his delicious and extravagant words before I settle into my gray-walled cubicle is a fantastic way to start my work day. With the jostling of the bus and the challenge of reading with tri-focals, I picked a font and a type-size that brings my e-reader version of Les Mis in at 4268 pages. That’s a lot of misery.

I ride the bus to work 18 days each month, so at 20-ish “pages” per day, I’ll be done by the end of the year.

I have never been a big fan of signing up for anything that may take a year to finish. I’m a little bit prone to distraction, a little likely to move on to something else, more of a starter than a finisher.

But that’s another thing I want to be intentional about this year, I want to finish something I start. It always helps to get from one side of a hope to the other with the buddy system.  You know, a walking partner, some sort of accountability check-in, a person to tell your best-kept secrets to. What’s daunting becomes do-able. 4268 pages becomes 20.

With Jean Valjean, Fantine and Marius, the naughty Thernardiers’ and the beloved Bishop riding the bus with me every day, this feels different, like it is going to get done.  I am going to finish Victor Hugo’s “Les Mis” by the end of the year.

I’ve never been so happy to be so miserable.