Lent 10: incomplete.

The liturgical season of Lent is the 40 days (excluding Sundays) between Ash Wednesday and Easter. Often, Sundays are thought of as "mini-Easters;" small celebrations in which we take a sabbath from our lenten disciplines in anticipation for the larger Easter to come. However, I've been thinking about how the exclusion of Sundays has a deeper meaning. When Sundays aren't counted as part of Lenten time, it gives each week a sense of incompleteness. We are waiting for wholeness, for something more. I like this unfinished feeling, not only because it reflects the anticipation of Easter, but because of how it is an accurate reflection of the spiritual life in general. It's a small reminder that we are all incomplete, that the journey is not done, and that God's work with us is not finished yet.

1 Corinthians chapter 13 reminds us, "For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end... For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love."

I think it is easy to be anxious for that completeness; to get frustrated that our understanding is so limited. We can sometimes feel that our partial understanding is somehow inferior or sinful. It is easy to feel guilty and ashamed. We might find ourselves thinking that if we just tried harder things would be more perfect. Or worse, we feel completely overwhelmed and trying to grow spiritually can feel like an impossible task with no end; as if the only way we will ever see God is in some future Kingdom of Heaven, and until then we are just shit out of luck.

But Lent's incompleteness reminds me, that there is beauty in being unfinished. It is a time to dance and play in the dimness; an invitation to see all the incomplete pieces as places of imagination, hope and adventure. There is a reason that we can only see dimly: there is a shadowy beauty in the dimness. The never ending process of growing and of slowly wiping the smudge and shadow away is part of the most beautiful journey of all. The view of God that slowly emerges through the fog is more beautiful than it would be if we had all the clarity in the world.

C.S. Lewis wrote, "The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing-- to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from..." I love this idea. I find peace in the idea that the longing and searching is just as sweet as what we end up discovering. My hope is that during Lent I will taste the sweetness of longing and see the magnificence my own incompleteness.