The end of Lent: when all you have has run out

I cannot do it. Cannot keep up with the hunger. I cannot feed them all.

The bird feeder swings empty again in the harsh winds of March, and those who have not forsaken it by now hop about the tree with wondering eyes fixed on me, their supposed benefactress. But the supply has run out, and I am too weary and poor to replenish it. The hunger of winter outpaces my resources.

Simply to feed the birds - am I too feeble, even for this?

My joy turns sour. My ears turn cold. My kindness falls short.

Yet despite my empty vessel, the sun shines and the jays still flash blue and the chickadees sing. They have a Provider. My humble offering will not, cannot, sustain these hundreds of wings. It was never meant to.

Perhaps they have been the ones sustaining me, all this time. Here at the feeder, beauty has been gathered into my view. I have seen the colours of joy. I have heard the tongues of heaven. I have been graced with the soft brush of feathers in the snow. I thought I was doing them a favour. Perhaps this feeder has been God's gift to me all along. And he keeps giving. He keeps showing favour. He keeps sending the birds.

No matter how much I prepare, the realities I hunger for are still gifts from above. That is what Lent reveals. That at the end of the day, we are all empty handed. All in need of grace. All in need of manna.

I alone cannot create what I wish to be. But I can look to my Creator with an open mouth. And tonight, as he breaks the bread, I can swallow the grain that must fall to the earth and die. As I am brought face to face with my emptiness, once again, I remember,

"The LORD sustains all who fall
And raises up all who are bowed down.
The eyes of all look to You,
And You give them their food in due time.
You open Your hand
And satisfy the desire of every living thing." (Psalm 145:15-16)

All are welcome to gather in the swinging shadow of emptiness, where the ground is still cold and barren. He will open his hands to our insatiable, piercing hunger, and offer himself as bread for our need. Here at the foot of a leafless tree, he will spread a banquet in the presence of his enemies. From this cracked grain, he will give life to the world.

Here at the empty feeder, we will be fed.


~lg

Build with Kindness

Out in the roar of March’s winter prowl, it is still too cold for the sparrow to think of nesting. This is the tempestuous tugging between winter and spring, and March will have no clear winner. New life is either hiding or biding its time. Yet the sun is warming, and this patch of the world is turning steadily toward lengthening days.

Sparrow, my time will come before yours. I am nesting now. I am preparing a place for my not-so-hidden new life. The sun’s warmth spreads over me with an urgency as the days till Easter Sunday melt away. I must build.

I must gather the twigs, the soft grasses of autumn. I must gather the feathers, the string, and nature’s downy gifts. I must knit these comforts together in a sheltered hollow for my young.

Build with kindness, the wind whispers. This is the word I have heard. This is what I must circle our home with.

When kindness lines our days, the atmosphere changes.

Voices calm.

Tempers soothe.

Transitions are smooth.

We are all a little more settled, a little more satisfied.

There are more smiles, more hugs, more opportunities to share moments of wonder together.

When kindness lines our days, our hearts change.

Wrath is turned.

Mercy learned.

Compassion confirmed.

There is more repentance. There is more grace.

The Spirit’s fruit tree blossoms and bears good things, and by it were are sustained.

Kindness brings the warmth of spring to chilly days.

It is a simple investment, and small, but made mighty layer by layer. It is a habit of moments, of gathering the minutiae of life into a more gracious form. Kindness is never insignificant. By it I may build and bolster our home to be the haven I desire.

By kindness I will prepare a nest to receive you, little one – to sustain us all in the great change ahead, to soften the edges of tiring days, to warm this humble space with whispers from our good Father. His is the open hand wherein we may all rest. 

~lg

John Donne's "Batter My Heart"

Just popping in to share this poem from Malcolm Guite's The Word in the Wilderness: A Poem a Day for Lent and Easter. I've been enjoying this anthology which includes a wide selection of poets (and Guite's insightful commentary on their works), as well as some of Guite's own poetry.

This poem by John Donne, written four hundred years ago, leapt off the page as a poem kindred to my own soul. It speaks the language of Jacob's midnight wrestling, of Paul's living sacrifice, the kernel of desire at the heart of Lent's journey. It is a prayer of raw beauty and power.


Batter My Heart

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town to another due,
Labour to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain,
But am bethroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.



~lg

Swan Joy

Joy is a longing,
a passageway with the white wingbeat of swans overhead,
and the silent current of a spring river beneath.
You cannot live in water or air, and yet they push and lift you into realms of beauty and desire,
so much the more powerful for their being out of reach.

Joy is this pulling of the soul right out of the body and onto the swan's back,
a dreamscape more alive than your waking vision.
It is forever captured in your mind's eye,
a trumpet call from a far country,
which even now sets your feet dancing on the rippled water,
dazzled by the bright sun toward which you run.

Joy is the elemental force you cannot contain,
yet which defines your every movement,
now from beneath, now from above,
the wave that buoys,
the wind that breathes,
the holy, humbling wild of spring unleashed.



This poetic reflection draws on C.S. Lewis's understanding of joy as desire, and is formed by memories of canoeing down the Salt River with my father one spring. In an afternoon I will never forget, we set up a tarp sail and the wind carried us downstream toward hundreds of white tundra swans that had returned to the river. As we neared, they rose up by the dozens and dozens, and flew overhead to resettle behind us. We were surrounded. I look back on that day as a gift of beatific vision. 


~lg

The return of the birds

The blue jays arrived first. They still startle me with their plumage. I didn't grow up with blue jays, and they've always seemed rather foreign to me, like creatures out of a jungle picture book. They are colourful and noisy and somewhat obnoxious, rather like children. They crowded around the feeders, calling to each other with their piercing cries, alerting the bird world to their discovery.

The chickadees came next. They are the bravest of the little birds, willing to dart in between the bossy jays for their share of sunflower seeds. With their black caps on, they seem game for anything. These are the birds which landed on my head last winter when I stood out in the cold for half an hour with seeds on my toque, pretending to be a statue. It was one of those childhood dreams fulfilled. I had tried many times as a kid to stand still enough, for long enough, in our backyard in Fort Smith for the chickadees to land, but they never did. Perhaps I've gained some patience as a "grown-up." Or perhaps this variety is a little less wild. Either way, they braved my humanity long enough to settle and snatch what they were after, and left me grinning like a fool.

Later in the morning I came back to the window and the snowy ground was spread with juncos. I cannot say why these in particular should captivate me. Perhaps it is the distinction between their smoky grey backs and white breasts, or the way their eyes gleam like shiny coals through the smoke. It might sound silly, but I think it's the way they look at me. They prefer to forage on the ground, picking out what has scattered from more careless birds above. And that's why we make sure to scatter a few handfuls of seed just for them.

And up among the chickadees, a downy woodpecker, alternating between feeder and branches, gripping bark with its four-toed feet, always head up. How is the grub finding in February,  I wonder? It is smaller than its hairy cousin, though just as persistent. It must pick and drill for its food, if easier pickings are not to be found. "If any would not work, neither shall he eat." I admire its determination, and the way its thrusts its whole upper body beak-first into the search.  On Ash Wednesday morning, I woke to the sound of one of these, knocking on doors in the sky.

"Ask and it shall be given unto you. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened unto you." This was the message I heard on the day we consider and mark our frailty.

Such little creatures all, with only a feather's breadth between them and starvation. Fragility like this cannot afford complacency. And so I am happy to spread this small banquet in a sparser season. Sometimes you just need a table prepared. 

When you are tired of drilling and foraging through a crust of ice, there is this grace that arrives like manna. In  the deep winter, a hand stretches out, offering seed for the sower and bread for the eater.

Be brave, little bird, and come closer!

The search never ends, but neither does the provision. There is always food enough for the journey.




~lg

Lent Is For the Birds

Winter is truly here with a respectable -22 C morning. The snow is crunchy and crystalline, and the river shivers under its growing skin. Life stirs house by house, as first one plume of smoke and then another rises out of the neighbours' chimneys. All seems still, silenced by the cold, except for the birds of winter.

I've neglected the birdfeeder lately. The odd chickadee hops over to investigate their previous source of food, then flies off to search for other, more generous backyards. I miss them. I miss the chatter and flutter and closeness of small life.

I miss the messages they carry from another kingdom. Over the years, they have been to me heaven's carrier pigeons. (For God's voice is woven and wafted throughout all creation.) A year ago, a bird was somehow tied up with the beginning of this journey of a life of prayer.

Lent is a time for fasting. But it's also a time for feeding the soul.

This Lent, I've decided to feed the birds. 

Junco - Carrier of secrets, she knows where to find the hidden seed. She knows the song of the wind.

(Give me ears to hear!)

Chickadee - Cheerful herald through winter's cold, constant companion of woods and windowsill, bright bringer of joy.

(Give me a heart of joy!)

Sparrow - Common beauty building her nest, crafting a refuge of kindness out of bits and pieces, gathering nature's scraps into a soft bed for her young.

(Give me wings of kindness!) 


We will go out into the cold and fill up the feeder, scatter the seeds, and send our invitation. We will watch and wait for the birds to come back. We will listen, and learn, and lean close. We will feed the hunger of winter.

We will wait for the return of the birds . . .

~lg

The Heart of Lent

I've been practicing Lent, in some fashion or other, for about the last decade. Lent is the forty day period (excluding Sundays) from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday. It is part of the recurring rhythm of the church calendar, another way to mark time by following in the footsteps of Jesus.

It is a time of fasting and prayer. It is a penitential, preparatory season. During Lent we focus on the life and teachings of Jesus, all the while preparing to embrace the terrible beauty of his death and resurrection. For me it is a much-needed shift in perspective.

At its heart, Lent is about hunger and humility.

Hunger - Where would we be without the recognition of our lack? We live in a supersaturated society, where desires are gratified smoothly at our fingertips, and our stomachs growl right along with the ceaseless roar of consumerism. Through fasting, through denial, and self-sacrifice, we acknowledge that we have needs we alone cannot satisfy. We don't fast to gain brownie points with God. We fast to remember our great need of Him. And in mercy He fills the empty places.

Humility - Where would we be without this unpopular position? With our noses so high in the air that God becomes merely a stumbling stone to our vain ambition, when He wants to build us a sanctuary (Isaiah 8:11-15). The only way in is through a fearfully narrow gate, and we must crawl on prayerful knees. But once inside, we find a fortress of shelter and strength, a sacred dwelling. And in mercy He gives us the ability to receive.

Hunger and humility soften our hearts. They make us search after our upside-down King as he makes his way from the Sermon on the Mount to the Mount of Olives. They make us strain to hear his whispers and climb trees to see his wonders.

Lent is an invitation to a forty day journey with Jesus. A journey of hunger, humility, and honesty. A journey to His heart.


~lg

Do the Juncos Know It's Ash Wednesday?

Do the juncos know it's Ash Wednesday, flitting from willows to crusted snow, seeking the half buried seeds? Their diet is unchanged today, and their winter foraging, their flight and fight for survival, goes on.

And yet, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. This I share with all creatures, those who dance in the cerulean heavens and those who seem intent on bringing hell to earth.

I sip my bitter coffee, this small denial, offer it up in fasting and prayer. No sugar. No sweetness on the tongue for forty days. In its absence I remember those who struggle for bread, let alone sugar, who struggle for life in the looming of death, for hope in the heavy drifts of despair.

I am one person, one graced by hope, one surrounded by beauty so myriad I almost feel guilty. I am one who falters on the pilgrim path, all too aware of my own tendencies to sin and selfishness. I am one who wonders how best to spend this life and the inheritance given, how to direct my energies into the howling vacuum of need at my fingertips.

And so I fast. And so I pray. And so I live Lent remembering that all I am is marked by this smudge of a cross, the unlikely mark in which all things must find their definition, in which my own life is defined and made clear, and is made somehow more than the sum of its dust.

The best way I know to reshape this life with all its passions, to order its loves to a fitting end, is through prayer. This is my prayer: form me into a woman who prays, for whom prayer is second gifted nature. For the one who prays seeks the face of God, from whom all blessings flow, from whom love bleeds out to join with human suffering, from whom all creatures live and move and have their being. And in the seeking, perchance to find, perhaps to see - aye, here's the rub! - and in seeing to be seen. For You are El Roi, the God who sees.

And Your gaze is my undoing, and my repentance, and in my repentance my remaking.

Remake me to be worthy of the shape of the cross. Remake me into a fitting vessel of love. Remake me so all my sweetness is found in the beauty of holiness.

Remake me so that in praying for those nearest and those distant I may be formed into your answer. Give me courage to be your arrows, flung into the heart of my aching prayers.

The juncos dash for the seeds, and there is a merry desperation in their movement. One flits, hovers near the window, flings a glance with its shining black eye to my strange indoor world. I suppose it's safer in here. But there are seeds to be had in the snow, with a little digging, and the slow but steady increase of the sun's reach, and the whole free sky.


~lg

On waiting. . .

"All our action ends in passion because the response to our action is out of our hands. That is the mystery of work, the mystery of love, the mystery of friendship, the mystery of community - they always involve waiting. And that is the mystery of Jesus' love. God reveals himself in Jesus as the one that waits for our response. Precisely in that waiting the intensity of God's love is revealed to us. If God forced us to love, we would not really be lovers. ... [I]t is in the passion that the fullness of God's love shines through. It is supremely a waiting love, a love that does not seek control."

~ Hernri Nouwen
"From Action to Passion"
Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter


~lg

Empty Me

A song for Lent.

Hunger

In fasting
I am stripped down to hunger,
to desire, raw need.
What are these cravings that gnaw at the pit of my stomach,
directing my heart and mind and hands,
eating into my dreams,
demanding to be fed?

In fasting
I must face hunger,
look into its greedy eyes,
and deny it,
deny myself.

In fasting
my soul growls at God,
honest in doubt, honest in need,
empty
with no bread or wine in sight,
only an invitation to "Follow Me."

~lg

holy time

Lent.

A time of emptying. A time to wrestle with weakness. A time to uproot, a time to kill.

A time to deny. A time to surrender.

A time to let go.


Good Friday.

A time to abandon all earthly hope, all fleshly striving, and pride's last defenses.

A time to descend into a small dark space and await the quickening light of morning.

The only thing left is the miracle.


~lg

bread (2)

Soft evening light streams through a kitchen window and onto the worn surface of a wooden table. The hermit thrush sings, and by these chimes the woman knows it’s time to begin her work. She lays out flour, water, salt and the fragrant yeast. Her hands have memorized the motions – sprinkling, stirring, kneading. Her arms are strong from this nightly task. Love, frustration, sweat and prayers are worked into the dough till it is soft and resilient to her touch. It is the same process, day after day.

She makes bread, makes a living for her family. She sets the offering to rise in the warmth of the kitchen. The last thing she will do before she sleeps is punch it down again and separate it into loaves to be set in pans. Under the cover of night it will transform and gain its life. She will rise before the dawn to the robin’s song, and will make the fire blaze and put the loaves into the oven. As the family wakes they will smell her sweet labour, and she will be satisfied to place golden manna before them. They break the bread together and are warmed for the day’s work. They eat till they are full, and there is always enough left for supper. By the time the thrush chimes again it will all be consumed, crust and crumb. The woman will sigh and begin again the daily sacrifice. It is their life.


Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in me will never thirst . . . I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (John 6)

In the city

The following is increasingly uncomfortable. I can’t turn back. I don’t want to go on. I have limped along at a distance through the maze of twisted streets, half hoping not to be noticed. I’ve been climbing on my hands and knees behind him, cursing this narrow path, praying for escape. For in the fearful ascent I have been uncovered for who I truly am. I have travelled the road and it leads to the place of the skull. Standing unclothed I am the laughingstock of my closest friends and deepest enemies. The sudden and shaming revealing of self hits me hard in the pit of my stomach. The light pierces and burns, illuminating corrupted flesh and a calloused heart. My punishment is all around me. Yet in this shame there is a grace, for I have not been left here to decay. So I submit to the pain of uncovering. Here humiliation is mercy, for though I have fallen, it is not over the precipice, close as I have been groping to the edge. I have stumbled over Jesus himself, and in the fall is my salvation.

~lg

Journey to Jerusalem

Trampled leaves lay a path into the city. Bleeding palms and torn garments are what is left of a triumphant entry, and now the dusk descends. The city is full of shadows and night voices. I’ve never been here in the dark before. I jump at what I think is a soldier or vagabond around the corner, but it is only an old rooster scratching the stony ground. I’m not sure I want to follow this man, but I know I’ll get lost here if I don’t. The streets are so narrow I hardly know if I’m staggering upwards or stumbling down. I smell bread baking, women roasting lamb, roses growing in thorny gardens. I do not yet understand what this journey means.

Left under a black sky all I see is my own heart. I am uncomfortable with silence, for it brings out aortic wars I have long suppressed. My feet are weary of the blind struggle, but I know I must go on. What I fear most is the journey into myself.

~lg

bread

What if we gave our bread away? If we broke our gluttoned souls and opened our carbohydrate wallets, would we all have enough to eat? While we argue over substance change, starvation whispers in desperate stomachs. Have we reached a point where thankfulness becomes selfishness and we hoard our eucharist in hallowed arks, not seeing how it rots in our fat hands? We are fine kings and priests who gorge ourselves at the banquet table and brush our crumbs into the highways and hedges of human existence. We are growing moldy. Is this his body?

~lg

Lent reflections

Lent was never part of my religious tradition growing up. It was one of those “Catholic” things that involved eating fish on Fridays and praying with beads and things like that – highly suspicious to a Protestant. I think I first “discovered” it in my third year of college, when we had a class on the festivals and seasons of the Church's year. I was fascinated to learn of this great Church tradition that has been practiced across time and continents, and decided to give up chocolate! I haven’t observed it every year since then, but I am always aware of those little words that pop up in my agenda or on a calendar: Ash Wednesday. Being part of an Anglican seminary the last 2 years has also raised my awareness of the season.

It’s not just about giving something up. It’s not about a yearly weeding out of unhealthy practices, like fated new years resolutions. It’s not about works righteousness and it’s not about making myself feel any better or worse about myself.

I'm no expert, and I haven’t done any research into the season, but this is what I’ve felt out from those around me and experienced myself:

It’s about orienting myself to a bigger story, to its rhythms of denial and fulfillment, death and resurrection, of fasting and celebration. It’s about placing myself on the way of Christ, and embracing the call to pick up my cross. It’s about reminding myself of the constant necessity to place my sins, my habits, my unexamined life, my desires and my time before a holy merciful God. It’s about joining with a community who are trying to walk with each other on this often-difficult way, confessing our sins together, jumping into the gospel story in the days leading up to Christ’s passion and asking Him to form us through His footsteps.

This year I’m fasting from television. It’s not a great vice of mine in particular, but I’ve felt it eating away at my time and mental energy, and it has all but replaced dinners together at the table. Since I’ve decided to give it up, I’m amazed and amused at how many times a day I have the impulse of turning it on – at a lull in my activity, when I’m bored or tired, when I’m procrastinating, when I’m just being thoughtless. It’s a good exercise. Days seem longer – who wouldn’t want more time in their day? – more reading and dish washing get done! I think the greatest change I’ve noticed so far is not only the diminished noise level in my house, but that my inner life is quieter. TV is another voice in my life that sometimes just needs to shut up. I haven’t come upon any great spiritual revelations in its absence, but I pray the silence is an open door for God to speak more clearly.