A Frozen Moment

Lent is coming.  I can feel it in the rhythm of the Church.  It's a strange moment - a sort of wrinkle in time: Church life speeds up and speeds up and then drastically slows down to slower than it had been before.  If you pay attention, though, you notice a frozen moment.  The wrinkle.  I don't know if the frozen moment is in the same place for every person, but I do know when I find that instant I have just become aware that the slow-down - Lent - is about to happen. 

Lent is an interesting time in the life of the Church.  It seems to me to be like Winter: from the outside it looks like things are dead.  Indeed, the music of the Church moves from major to minor, the services are dimly lit, and let's not forget about the fasting.  Self-denial is tough, and expected.  For a person who has never experienced an Orthodox Lent it seems like a pretty grim time.  But, just as in Winter, beneath that facade of death amazing things are happening.  Lent - while stripping away all the excess in our lives - can be a very busy time.  It seems as if there are at least three times as many church services every week.  Somehow there is growth in the time of sadness.  When Spring suddenly comes in the form of Easter the new shoots burst forth out of the ground that had once been covered by snow...Well, spiritual snow, at least (for those of us who live in Santa Barbara).

I was minding my own business when suddenly I realized Lent was on it's way.  Five weeks....Four weeks....Three weeks....I began to feel that dread that so often comes before Lent.  Oh, man.  I'm going to have to start fasting.  Okay.  I've done it before I can do it again.  But is fasting really all that important?  I mean really...  I started justifying why I shouldn't have to fast this year, but then I stopped when I realized that train of thought brought guilt.  I wanted the Church to stop hurtling toward Lent.  And then, as I mentioned before, I happened to look up and noticed the wrinkle.

I think it's no coincidence that my eyes were opened on the week of the Prodigal Son.  (In Orthodoxy each week that leads up to Lent commemorates a specific person, parable, or event.)  I "came to myself" and turned my direction back to facing God.  It's almost as if I had been swimming underwater and suddenly broke the surface today.  All the sounds I had heard were muffled by the water.  All the sights I had seen were blurred out.  Something about today made it all sharp.  I need Lent this year.  I need to have the junk stripped away and I need to meet God.  I need to be clothed by the Ragman.

And so I decided that I wanted to do something to prepare myself for Lent. (How Orthodox is that?  I'm preparing for the preparation.)  I decided that starting today, and throughout Lent, I am going to read books to aid my spiritual journey.  I have enough of them.  Some of them I've read before and some of them I've ignored as they sat on my bookshelf, waiting for me to open them up.  As I was looking at my bookcase a title jumped out at me: The Divine Dance.  I grabbed it and started reading.  Within the first 30 seconds I was hooked. 

All the fairy tales are true, you know.

There is a real Prince.  He came from the vast kingdom of His Father with one purpose: to woo and win His long sought-after bride.  One day, He will return to carry her away and they will be together forever.

- Robin Jones Gunn (from the Foreword)

I was amazed.  They speak my language!! I thought.  I can understand when it's put this way.  It makes perfect sense to me.  I've since read two chapters.  I'm trying to finish it quickly - while still absorbing the good stuff - because I know the danger that faces me: I get so excited about an idea and then it fizzles out.  It's the danger of over-enthusiasm, and I am one overly enthusiastic person.  It will be a struggle for me, I'm sure, to stick to this during Lent.  But I want to learn.  I want to work on the discipline. 

And so I will.

I am sure I will post many more ramblings about what I have read, or seen, or felt, or whatever this Lent.  I have to admit that I have no idea what I am talking about most of the time.   But I can promise you that I will commit right now to being totally honest in what I write.  And who knows?  Maybe we can learn a thing or two from each other this Lent.