Lenten Journey: Broken

I'm following along with Christine Sine's Lenten Guide this season. See her blog for a list of others writing on the topic.

I have to say I'm having a tough time getting into Lent. Ash Wednesday was the one day last week I could hang out with my parents before they flew back to Boston, so I went ashless. Since I've been worshiping with my Episcopal friends on Sunday mornings, I had really been looking forward to starting Lent right, but so much for my plans...

I haven't decided to give up anything specific for Lent, but I've done enough of the self-improvement sort of fasting from chocolate or coffee that I still feel a bit uncomfortable reaching for dessert or a glass of wine. I almost gave up caffeine by accident, but decided that sleep walking through Lent might not be the best plan, either.

So here I am again, with all my efforts at spiritual disciplines falling to dust around me. Really, should I be surprised at this point?

I walked the beach again today. I found myself wrestling with a question I'd read in Gerald May's book on the Dark Night of the Soul: In the midst of the dislocation of the dark night, would you really want to go back to the way things used to be? It was one of John of the Cross's diagnostic questions for recognizing a "dark night" or season when God was working in hidden ways in the soul. For me the question came out, would I want to go back to 1995? That's another story altogether, but whenever I bump into the fact that all is not as I would like it to be in my life with God, I find myself looking back to that particular season. I don't know whether I was sadder at the idea of giving up that idealized -- idolized? -- picture of the spiritual life and its consolations or at the realization that I was so deeply attached to that particular set of experiences.

So I think I've figured out what I'm supposed to give up for Lent: control, expectations. Sounds simple enough, let me make my list of ten things I'm going -- oh ... yeah.