Lent 2024: Week two

Hiding the Bokenness

When I was a child, I broke my parents’ vase. I don’t remember how, but I remember what I did with the broken shards. I hid them. No one was around to hear the vase fall, no one saw the debris, so I quickly scooped up the pieces and placed them on the shelf in the playroom closet behind a stuffed animal, baseball mitt, or board games like Twister, Sorry, or Mousetrap. I’m not sure what I was thinking. It wasn’t like my parents wouldn’t notice the missing vase, but, at the time, hiding the pieces seemed like a good idea.

It still does.

Although I’m older now, my first instinct when I see the broken parts of me is to hide them. For years, I did my best to hide my brokenness. I stuffed the pieces behind a Christmas-card-family, a successful career, even a black shirt and plastic white collar. I also made sure I surrounded myself with friends who wouldn’t look too close. The problem was, my hiding did nothing to the brokenness. The pieces were still there whether I saw them or not. They were just as real even if no one noticed.

If my emerging faith has given me anything, it’s the power to stop hiding my brokenness. In the assurance that I’m created in God’s image but have distorted that image through costly mistakes and crippling fears, there’s no need to keep hiding parts of me.

Lent is a time to do soul-searching, and one of the things we should search for deep within our souls is the brokenness we’ve spent a lifetime hiding. Like naming grief last week, this is not easy work. It will take effort and practice, but the freedom on the other side is worth it.

Who knows, maybe our courage will invite others to do the same.

Lent 2024: week one

(This is a follow-up to the first Lenten brushstroke. Each week will be another suggestion based on the opening image.)

For what do you grieve?

The question, no doubt, conjures up a list of names unique to each of us, but laced with a similar pain. Regardless of time, we carry that list with us every day and, like the opening Lenten image of the clogged stream, our grief often hinders God’s flow within us. This is a season to look at those names, see the faces, hear the voices, and remember specific moments.  Taking time to do this is to lift branches and clear away leaves from our internal stream.

But there are also other reasons for grief which are equally lasting and harmful. The loss of one’s good health, vibrant marriage, parent’s love/attention, or secure job are some of the other reasons we grieve. So, too, is an empty house with grown-up children gone. A lost friendship or sterling reputation can also cause us to grieve. The reasons are endless, and the grief is real. Few take the time to do the work of resolving it.

·      For me, just naming every reason I have to grieve is a start. (Making an uncensored list is helpful).

·      Taking time to feel the hurt and stop ignoring it is the next step. (I know we are taught to avoid pain, but this can be fruitful soul work if you have the courage.)

·      Exploring what happened (and my role in it, if I have one) is an additional step that will bring a sense of closure so few of us experience.

·      Once I have done all of this, I place whatever it is on the altar within me, the one where I place things too hard to handle and ask God for help.

Think of this as the hard, messy work of clearing the stream. It’s not the only work we need to do, but it’s a significant start.

Lent 2024

It wasn’t how I remembered it. The stream, one of my favorites, was a place I remembered with glistening water and rocks causing it to dance its way through life. I often closed my eyes wherever I happened to be and tried to picture the stream. It made me feel like I was sitting on its bank, looking, listening, and tasting the stream I loved.

But when I returned once, it was nothing like what I had imagined. The trees and weeds had grown all along its banks. Storms had caused trees, branches, and leaves to fall and clog the stream’s flow. Now there was little sound and the brackish pools were cloudy.

Sadness and disillusionment replaced the excitement I had been feeling while heading back to this favorite spot. “But the stream you remember, the stream you came to see, is still here,” I said to myself, so I began to pull the weeds and lift the branches. It took more work than I intended, but seeing the stream begin to move again kept me working. Soon, the familiar sound of water dancing around the rocks made me look for other branches and sticks to remove.

I’ve always had a thing for streams. The beauty never ceases to inspire me, the sound never gets old. They’re so full of life, I once explained to my mother, who smiled and nodded to let me know she understood. That day, I realized a stream, just like our lives, need attention. They, too, can be glistening and as lively as a spontaneous dance, but storms come, so do trees, branches, and all kinds of debris. If left unattended, things get caught on the rocks and the water’s flow slows to a crawl. Cloudy pools replace clear rapids and weeds shroud the stream from the world.

Thank God, there’s a season like Lent when we’re invited back to the stream to do the much needed work. It’s sometimes hard, disheartening work, but when the water begins to flow again and the sun reflects of the clearing water, it is well worth.

May we all return to the stream and do the work.