Lent is hard. Fasting is hard.
Add that to the list of historical “No kidding, Captain Obvious” quotes – right up there with Legolas’s “The horses are restless” gem from the film version of The Return of the King.
(The hubs and I mock Legolas mercilessly, I’m afraid. They really did give him one too many “Well, duh” things to say – and he has to say them all so nobly, like every word is erudite and poetic. I digress…)
The difficulty of fasting for me is that I usually equate it with punishment, and I tend to equate punishment with anger. I’ve always been a little . . . intense about punishment – not the punishment of others, but of myself.
Meaning, if I did something wrong, I would punish myself.
Example: in 4th or 5th grade, one of my friends fell and hurt herself on the playground. She got hurt playing a game that I had made up (I often made up our playground games, and they often involved running about to rescue someone or to be rescued), and I thought I should be punished. When neither the teacher nor my parents agreed, I took matters into my own hands.
I wrote “I will not make up harmful games” 100 times and then gave myself a day of silent recess. I stood there with the other kids who were not allowed to play that day, watching my friends run around and have fun, thinking high and noble thoughts about justice.
What a little prig I was.
This story demonstrates how widely little Ruth missed the point of mercy and forgiveness. I grew up in an incredibly loving home, so there’s no explanation for this other than my own unique strain of human-ness. This strain has led, among other things, to a complicated relationship with fasting.
During this first week of Lent, however, I have been reminded repeatedly that this observance is not punishment. I don’t have to spend forty days thinking “I must give things up because God is mad at me for liking them.”
On the contrary: Lent constitutes an invitation from the Almighty, not a smack on the wrist. He is inviting me to release, for a time, a few of the many distractions that clog my senses, in order that I can better hear and see and know and follow Him. This is to be a time of increasing intimacy – of discovery – of rich growth.
As we were driving to the Ash Wednesday service last week through the (pre-DST) twilight, I was struck again by the beauty of bare tree branches outlined against a winter sky. This is one of the reasons I love winter: with all the leaves gone, you can see so much more. You can see past the tree, opening vistas normally obscured by foliage, and you can also see the shape of the tree itself.
This struck me as a fitting image for Lent.
As we strip away distractions and comforts, we are left with the bare bones. All the defects are now clear to see, as are the unfinished spots – the twigs that are waiting for their new spring clothes, but haven’t received them yet. Revealing the former can cause shame, while the latter often leads to embarrassment – and both can walk hand in hand with fear.
This week, dear reader, may we release both and walk hand in hand with the Gardener instead.
Trees in Winter: A Lenten Meditation
Strip me bare
so all may see
so you may see
The outline of desire
The contour of each defect
The blueprint of Becoming
I’ve fought so hard, so subtly to hide
Unconscious (nearly) of my efforts
Yet so desperate was the drive that it broke through
in self-defeating camouflage
Each garish hue proclaiming
In tones more gaudy than the day before:
“Here stands a soul in need of a disguise”
Strip me clean of every mask
The rich, eye-catching garments
Conveying certainty – without, within
so all may see
so I may see
The screaming need beneath the vivid shade
The cavity unfilled by realized dreams
– yet.
Strip me free of both embarrassment and shame
The fear of being seen (or seeing)
as woefully unfinished
The emptiness of each fragmented womb
outlined painstakingly against an empty sky
The detail of each “someday”
Laid shockingly
Bare.
Strip me clear of sweet distraction
that every aspiration
may cleave to inspiration
and sprout unlikely green
Strip me bare
Wholly bare
For only bare
May I bear
Life.
Well said, dear one. Candor opens many doors to new life. In one Christmas letter, I defined “humility” as “seeing things as they really are”. Life-giving!!!!
Wonderful, Ruth. Thanks.
Stripping bare the superfluous and extraneous in our world does help us hone in on what truly matters. What a lovely reminder this lent season ❤