The Journey toward Renewal

primroses growing wild in Cornwall during the Lenten season, ©A.Rutherford

Ash Wednesday

I was not raised in a faith tradition that gave any attention to Lent, certainly not the tradition of giving something up for Lent.  Of course, I often heard people I knew who did observe the tradition speaking of giving up chocolate or Pepsi or some other treat they dearly loved and thought would be a sacrifice to do without for 40 days.  But that never appealed to me as I couldn’t make sense of the point of giving up such things.

I knew, of course, that the Lenten season begins with Ash Wednesday.  In fact, as a graduate student in English literature, I wrote a critical analysis of T.S. Eliot’s long poem, Ash Wednesday, which was the first poem he wrote after his conversion to Christianity.   Eliot, a recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature,  is considered the most important English-language poet of the 20th century, but the theme of this particular poem rankled the secular intellectuals of his day, as might be expected.  However, after his coming to faith, Eliot was unapologetic about centering his subsequent work about the theme of redemption.  His genius was such, though, that it had to be recognized however much anyone might disagree with his Christian sentiments.

Ash Wednesday is the day the yearly journey begins toward the promise of Resurrection assured by Easter.

This year I have decided to take on the challenge of Lent, which is in essence a 40-day retreat, a time of renewal.  As I understand it, Ash Wednesday is the day you sort of take stock of your present position in your journey and face wherever you might be falling short.  Then with penitence and prayer, reading scripture and meditating, you enter more deeply into the process of renewal.  

An ancient tradition, to be sure, so what could it offer of benefit in the 21st century.   The culture around us is increasingly disorderly and clamors so for our attention, and its fast pace places demands upon us that often leave us unbalanced, and in this unbalanced state, our own individual lives easily become disordered.  So now more than ever, as individuals and as a society, we need the balancing and course correction which comes from a spiritual practice like Lent.   Self-denial is necessarily difficult, much more so than giving up treats, but more needed than ever.   We need a set-apart time when we look honestly at ourselves and determine what is impeding our physical, emotional, or spiritual progress in our journey.  However, the thing we should give up is the surrender of our Self in order to grow closer to the Divine Source.

With reflecting on Lent, I am set to thinking of a bit from Eliot’s poem:

Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden.

                                         -Ash Wednesday, by T.S.Eliot

The sad note here is the recognition that there are those that never make the journey, never enter the passage which leads to renewal, and thereby never open the door that leads to the garden blooming with new life.

This year as I observe Lent personally for the first time, I may not be wearing ashes on my forehead, but I will be wearing them on my heart. 

For each of us the journey is unique.  It is not a journey that we have to take.  Each of us must decide to set out on the journey.  No one else can take it for us, nor can they prescribe the route that we must take, as they cannot know precisely where we are.   That is a matter for the Holy Spirit.  Furthermore, we cannot take the journey for another, though we can offer each other support. 

The Journey 

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice --

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"

each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do --

determined to save

the only life you could save. 

~ Mary Oliver ~

Joel 2:12-14

Yet even now, says the Lord,
Return to me with all your heart,
With fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
Rend your hearts and not your clothing.
Return to the Lord, your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
and relents from punishing.
Who knows whether he will not turn and relent,
and leave a blessing behind him,
a grain-offering and a drink-offering
for the Lord, your God?

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