"What did you give up for lent?"
[My apologies, folks. For two weeks in a row I tried to write my meditation on the wounded healer and the words just wouldn't come (andI had really great pithy things to say and awesome healing stories to tell but it just wasn't happening). I ended up just skipping a week altogether. Too deep in my own woundedness to share that piece yet. ]
People often focus on giving up "bad stuff" for lent. There's the idea that if you can give up that bad habit for a short defined period of time, you might be able to build on that long term. Quit smoking, or overspending, or getting all road ragey.
But we don't hear as often about giving up the good stuff, and this year I've been learning (at least I hope I've been learning because it's been painful) that setting aside something good temporarily can be a real aid to seeing whatever else in my life has gone out of balance.
There's a big mess in my life - the sort of thing where as you start to wade into it you come to a deeper realization of what a really really big mess it is. I've begun the process of ending a seven year relationship, and it's gonna be a while. I was really looking forward to lent being over soon, and now I'm realizing I'm just getting started. I know right now in the middle of all this it looks bleak. I also know that the sun comes up every morning, and the seasons change as we tilt closer to or further away from the sun.
I'll close with the words of a favorite hymn of mine - a French easter carol:
Now the Green Blade Riseth
Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain,
Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.

In the grave they laid him, love whom men had slain,
Thinking that never he would wake again.
Laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen:
Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green,

Forth he came at Easter, like the risen grain,
He that for three days in the grave had lain.
Quick from the dead my risen Lord is seen:
Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.

When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain,
Thy touch can call us back to life again;
Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.