noisy introspection

I am not asking you

to take this wilderness from me

to remove this place of starkness

where I come to know

the wildness within me

where I learn to call the names

of the ravenous beasts

that pace inside me

to finger the brambles

that snake through my veins,

to taste the thirst

that tugs at my tongue.

 

But send me

touch angels,

sweet wine,

strong bread,

just enough

                     Jan L Richardson, In Wisdom’s Path p. 54

___________________________________________

 

today we enter the season of lencten

the “lengthening of days”

 

as we begin the final journey from the darkness of winter

to the light of spring

the journey from Galilee to Jerusalem,

from the transfiguration to the cross

the journey from “sin” to redemption

 

it is a time of slow plodding

of noisy introspection

of sitting in awkward silence

 

it is a time in the wilderness of a soul

fractured and torn by life

a time of getting to know ourselves

as we are, without pretense

 

a time for honesty

for both lament, for the ways in which our divinity has been blurred

and joy, for the surprising presences of sacred energy

that still lingers

 

the tumult of our world

simply reflects the chaos in our souls

and so we sit, and sometimes fast

our 40 days in the wilderness*

 

struggling and reflecting

allowing emptiness to come

until the emptiness hurts, gnawing at our entrails

 

and waiting like Jesus

for angels to tend to us

 

we prepare for the light

and new birth

 

we empty so that we can be filled

baptized

with the energy of God

filled with that which we cannot contain

 

that which sometimes will spill forth

and sometimes merely trickle out

through our brokenness

 

Love

watering the dry ground

so that God’s newness springs forth

 

resurrection