Lent

It's Palm Sunday. Well, now it's Monday... I forgot to post this... :P

We are in a sacred time. The world has been sleeping, and soon it will wake up from winter and spring will arrive. Likewise, we have been in Lent, sleeping, fasting, and anticipating the unknown, the coming of the new day, and the hope that what we believe is surely true, and that the snow will melt, the sun will rise, the flowers will bloom, and Christ will conquer.

Because it must have been... terrifying. I was struck by that this morning. How terrifying it must have been, to not know, and to place all hope on something seemingly irrational. There's a Jon Foreman song I really like to listen to that has this lyric, "For these seeds to give birth to life, first they must die." in it, and it's so true - whether it's Christ's death on a cross or stepping back from something you realize is unhealthy to give it the chance to flourish. It seems irrational, and illogical that death begets life, yet it does, strangely enough, and we must have hope in it. Lent is the time when we await death to bring on new life. Those three days at the end of this week is the culmination of the most faith-filled event in history. The death of the world, to rise and triumph over evil. I hope I'm making sense, honestly, all of these ideas are just spinning away from my fingers, and I don't know what I'm going to say next. In class, we've been talking about sacred time, and how there are moments in the day that are truly sacred, and times in the year that are sacred, and that we must be aware and in solidarity of that sacredness. The order of the world is very important, and aligning ourselves with that order is also important.

This has been the most difficult and trying Lent I have ever experienced. And Facebook was the bottom of the list of my concerns this Lent, though to the outside world, it was seemingly my "only" concern because I had given up that silly website. Facebook was peanuts to being in solidarity with fasting, waiting, praying, and truly wondering... what DOES the end of the story look like? Instead, I took the forty days to step back and critically examine a lot of things in my life: relationships, goals, my wishes, hopes and dreams, and work to align myself more with God, and be in solidarity with what is taking place right now. It was a very fruitful time. I realized many things, and took the time to just rest, rejuvenate, and quietly and gently be led to think and pray on different things. I'm fairly certain that's what Lent is truly about. Not just giving up something, but doing so to place yourself in solidarity with the world, to wait, anticipate, and in that time of fasting, be led to rest and back away from what is unhealthy. Allow the healing to happen when you allow it to be taken away from your fear-filled hands and allow goodness to shine through. For these seeds to give birth to life, first they must die. The world is waking up. The ground is thawing, the flower are beginning to burst, and the birds are beginning to sing once again.

And here: Another link to a terrific blog post. http://donmilleris.com/2010/03/30/the-greatest-impact-you-have-may-come-out-of-your-pain/