day 26 - infinite yes.

Some days, I am overwhelmed at the beauty of my life, and nothing can express the exuberant praise I feel more fully than the words of e.e. cummings:

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e.e.cummings

day 25 - eternally restless.

In John O'Donohue's book Beauty: The Invisible Embrace, he describes the ocean in a way I have felt, but never been able to pin down into words. He writes, "Words like 'ocean' and 'sea' are too small for such wild divinity. The ocean is beyond language. Her flow is a beautiful dance. She is eternally restless and delights our eyes with the structured rhythm of waves... With sublime elegance, the ocean approaches and embraces the landscape and each wave has a unique grace... Water stirs something very deep and ancient in the human heart. Our eyes and hearts follow its rhythm as if the flow of water were the mirror where time becomes obliquely visible. The image of water can hold such longing."

I have felt that longing and stirring. The sense of awe, beauty and something else unnameable as I watch the constant dance of waves rolling toward shore. Just looking at the ocean is for me a form of prayer. I especially love O'Donohue describing the sea as "wild divinity" and "eternally restless." This wild restlessness resonates deep in me. So often in the Christian traditions, we imagine God as a place of stillness and light and clouds. But the mysterious movement, depth and dazzling darkness of the ocean speaks intimately of the Divine. I look at that fathomless deep, and I think that God must be something like those stirring waters, and I want nothing more than to be drenched.

day 24 - grimy grace.

Tomorrow night I have the opportunity to help lead our Lenten evening worship. As part of that contemplative worship, I'll be helping to lead the sung liturgy and shape a small reflection time based on last Sunday's gospel lesson. I'm so excited because the lesson for this week is about mud, something I've been thinking a lot about. I love the paradoxical way that Jesus works, using dirt and spit to make someone clean, turning our ideas about what makes a person good or whole or clean upside down.

For me, this healing story has helped me to ask how I am seeing people -- am I seeing with the vision of muddy grace that loves people just as they are, and transforms them with radical acceptance? Or am I blind with my own judgement and expectations? Am I joyfully reaching out with my own muddy hands, or am I so busy trying to keep my own life clean that I don't even notice the people around me?

Jan Richardson from Painted Prayer Book offers up this wise and beautiful poetic reflection:

Lest we think
the blessing
is not
in the dirt.

Lest we think
the blessing
is not
in the earth
beneath our feet.

Lest we think
the blessing
is not
in the dust

like the dust
that God scooped up
at the beginning
and formed
with God’s
two hands
and breathed into
with God’s own
breath.

Lest we think
the blessing
is not
in the spit.

Lest we think
the blessing
is not
in the mud.

Lest we think
the blessing
is not
in the mire,
the grime,
the muck.

Lest we think
that God
cannot reach
deep into the things
of earth,
cannot bring forth
the blessing
that shimmers
within the sludge,
cannot anoint us
with a tender
and grimy grace.

Lest we think
that God
will not use the ground
to create us
once again,
to cleanse us
of our unseeing,
to open our eyes upon
this ordinary
and stunning world.

day 23 - when the chatter stops.

Frederick Franck once wrote, "You can look at thinks while talking or with a radio going full blast, but you can see only when the chatter stops." Don't get me wrong, I love words and music. But there is something about finding quiet that nurtures my soul. When I allow myself a few minutes in the morning to just sit, not looking at my computer, or talking, or watching tv, or checking my phone, but really just hearing the quiet-- it is so still, so unusual, that it is an almost a shocking experience.

My life is full of noise, but lent is a time when I intentionally seek out times and places where the chatter stops. The last few days, I've gotten back into the habit of writing morning pages (a practice borrowed from Julia Cameron that you can read about here). Before I begin writing I just take a few minutes to breathe and to notice. I watch the morning light stream into the window, feel the warmth of my mug of tea in my hands, curl my toes under a blanket against the chill of the early morning air. Then I just write. No chatter, just me and my pen and notebook, and the soft sounds of the world waking up.

It is a practice I love, but that I too often let go of for the sake of a few extra minutes in bed before rushing off to class or work. But when I take the time, in truth I feel so much more rested than if I hit the snooze button an extra time. When the chatter stops, we not only see the world and ourselves in new ways, I think we also find God. It is as if God is in that air, that light, speaking in these deep but quiet ways, and when the chatter stops, I finally hear him breathing.

day 22 - injustice.

I recently read this horrifying story about a 14 year old girl in Bangledesh who was violently raped. After her rape she was beaten as punishment for her "adultery." The violence of her rape and beating was so severe that her fragile body was bleeding internally. That bleeding led to her death. As I read it, I felt such rage and heart break that it is difficult to even put into words.

For the most part, this Lenten blog has been made up of my reflections on where I find beauty and where I see God in my daily living. But today, I am haunted by the story of this young girl. I cannot get her picture out of my head. It seems like a further injustice to write small words about art or nature or poetry, when her life was ended so tragically and abruptly. In the end, there was no grace or beauty offered to her.

I share her story because it is one that needs to be told. If part of the Lenten journey is to be called back toward the way of Jesus, then this is also the time to notice how broken our world still is. A time to ask ourselves if we are reaching out with the hands of Christ. A harsh desert journey, when we must open our eyes and look at a tragedy like this one, and ask ourselves the hard questions: how we will work as people of faith to keep this from happening again and again to defenseless people all over the world? How will we stand with those who have no one to shield or shelter them? How we will say over and over that we will not tolerate abuse and injustice? How will we work to heal the broken and protect the defenseless?

I hate that as I form and wrestle with these questions, I have no answers that are enough. I have no idea how to protect other girls in Bangladesh who may face the same fate. It makes me feel helpless and small. But I know I need to tell this story. I need to remind myself and others that this is happening, and that we cannot be silent. I know that this girl's life and death is a call to create safe places in our own communities where the vulnerable can find solace, support and shelter. I know I want to be a part of helping young girls not to be prey to sexual, emotional and physical violence. Her story is a reminder that we have failed and that we are not doing enough. I pray that somehow I will be a voice fighting for people like Hena. I hope against hope that I will have the courage to have a faith that doesn't just reflect about how God makes me feel, but a faith that I live -- a faith that actually saves and protects people. A faith that doesn't allow this to keep happening. A faith that doesn't rest until such violence stops. A faith that will not be silenced.

day 21 - no words.

One of my new favorite things is Story People art. I love how playful they are while still being so full of feeling, depth and meaning. The combination of vibrant colors, whimsical figures and simple story is magical.

One of the art pieces says, "I read once that ancient Egyptians had fifty words for sand and Eskimos had a hundred words for snow. I wish I had a thousand words for love, but all that comes to mind is the way you move against me while you sleep and there are no words for that."

As someone who loves language and is constantly reading and writing, I am so often trying to pin things down in words, but when I read this it reminded me of how the people and things we love are beyond language. How it is the feel of a person's hand, the way they smell, their patterns of freckles, and all those tiny indescribable things that make them their particular self that we love. I am so thankful for love beyond words.

day 20 - loving that crazy collage.

One of the guys in my youth group (the awesomely creative Ian Erickson) introduced me to this incredible artist, Swoon. Watching this and seeing her passion, inspired me to reconnect with my own creativity. I've been trying to read and write more, and simply to look for beauty and inspiration everywhere. Too often we lose our artist selves to the business of daily tasks and the stress of every day living. I love the way that art always awakens me to life. Swoon reminds me to see the beauty in the living chaos of the city. She talks about loving the crazy collage, and I can't think of a better metaphor for the magical mess that is life.