To Walk with Saints and Scholars

Lent begins this Wednesday, and that means this Tuesday (Shrove Tuesday, Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras) will be debauched…or kind of…depending on where you live. The pancakes will be flipped (weird!), the King Cakes will be devoured, and the beads, pasties and feathers will be stashed for another year. Of course, the original “celebration” of Shrove Tuesday was going to church to confess your sins to the priest – to be “shriven.” And since the 40 days that follow the confession were meant to be days of penance and fasting, all rich foods, and all rich thoughts and deeds, had to be used up and indulged to prepare for the sacrifices to come.

Oy. And wow.

Lent began as a mirroring of a holy man who was “led by the spirit into the desert” so that we might better understand our roles in creation. How it happens is often more a show of piety meant to make us feel righteous and religious. What we lose in that kind of approach is the wisdom of how we are called to be more righteous than any religion if it is about performance and show. So as Lent approaches, I am left thinking about how to follow the Spirit into the desert in a way that is both honest and instructive. The Irish context offers me some help.

Irish monks had no desert to wander into in order to find what God meant for them to be…or to be next. The island they floated upon was finite. It was the sea that was the infinite beyond. The monks, therefore, took to the water! And they did so with total surrender to where the winds of Spirit would take them by putting themselves to sea in small boats – coracles – that had no sails, no rudders, no oars. They, like St. Gobnait, sought their place of resurrection, and to do so was not some pro forma exercise but rather following their spiritual teacher into the desert they had at hand. Of course, like all who wander into the desert following Spirit in search of resurrection, they knew that death was the place to start…metaphorically at least, and maybe even physically too.

Lent as a pilgrimage toward resurrection is righteousness beyond religion. It is surrender to all there is to learn about what we are meant to offer creation…now…and maybe next. And it is a death, more than likely, of what has come before. I pray our pilgrimages toward resurrections this Lenten season are full of gentle surprises* and genuine insight. I invite you to walk the way with me each of the 40 days, and I offer a blessing as we prepare for Ash Wednesday and beyond.

A Blessing for/from St. Gobnait

(who sought the places of her resurrections)

Oh God…I humbly ask: may I be blessed to know that I am dead.

For when I’m honest,

I can admit I have forgotten

that resurrection requires assent.

To sputter to life again (my revival)

requires me ready to see,

able to say,

willing to sense the ways

that I have shriveled and decayed.

To pour a new wine

into leathered, old skins

means inspection and attendance

to each crack and crevice

lying thirsty for balm.

Not just hope.

But hope helps.

Not just faith.

But faith helps.

Rather, a good hard stare

with eyes wide and sights wider –

an honest, broken heart

is all that could get it begun.

So may I know, Oh God,

of my sanctified demise,

for there is no return from the grave

if I know not

that I was ever gone.