Ceramic plates waiting to be burned in the wood fire stove at the pottery @ St Johns monastery.
(c) A. Furchert, 2020.
What else can one give up this Lenten season in this never ending time of sorrows? Restaurant visits? Seeing friends? Family gatherings? All done.
You might feel your soul is stretched out already and you have already walked through the desert a hundred times as time and days and seasons diffuse into each other in this second year of the pandemic. You may feel you have given all you can, and risked all you have in care for others, in essential service, in sacrifice.
But perhaps Lent is not so much about giving something up and more about deepening. About walking slowly and waiting patiently for Spring to finally come, about being present to the lengthening days even as the snow still flies. Waiting as pottery rests, to be burned in the oven, to be finished.
Lenten comes from Germanic Old English “lencten” which means lengthen. Lengthen as in the days which lengthen towards spring. As we walk through a deep winter here in MN with the temps in the minus twenties and snow covering everything, there have been some birds starting to sing, as though they want to remind us of Spring. Spring is coming, dear traveler.
Do not despair.
A Blessing for your Lenten journey
The fire is not burning you
it only melts away what is not needed.
The weariness is not unending
it too will melt away.
Rest now in the storm.
Rest…
and dream of Spring.