life is just a reflecting pool: the end of lent

I used to hate leaving up old writings, but now I find I quite like it. Especially when what I’ve written was wrong or particularly ridiculous (read: dramatic), because it is interesting to see how I’ve changed, and bear witness to my own journey. It should be embarrassing, but one quality about myself that I’ve always particularly admired is that I’ve long since learned how to have a good laugh at my own expense.

Lent is over, Christ has risen. (other things happened in between but hey, I was raised southern baptist and they don’t follow a strict liturgical calendar.)

I’m not entirely sure what I thought I was going to learn in the last forty days, but I can almost assuredly say that I learned something else. Isn’t that always how it goes? You set out on one course, and the universe invariably offers you another. I wanted to eliminate excess from my life, and in several ways I did. I didn’t really buy anything other than groceries save for a vintage Super 8 camcorder and some athletic tape when my knee started to hurt. I was mindful in my consumption of food, of alcohol, of cigarettes. I retracted materially - pondered what it would feel like to live a simpler life in a city that is for all intents and purposes the capitalistic center of the country. I gave money away pretty much every time I left the house; I did my best to keep the free fridge on my block clean and stocked.

All of that felt good, and yet I felt somewhat spiritually adrift. Whatever I thought I was going to connect to in that time, I definitely wasn’t connecting. And I had to make peace with that too, and recognize it all as a part of the process. If you’re never lost you can never be found. So I read, I meditated, I went to my reading group where we discussed The Cross and the Lynching Tree. I kept up with the material practices, and waited for something to click again, for the connections to all start coming together.

That part is still a work in progress (as is life), but here are some of the things that stood out to me the most:

1. The world worshipped the goddess for much longer than any patriarchal, monotheistic religion has ever existed. We’re talking 10,000 years vs. about 3,500. We are quite myopic in our contemporary worldview.

2. I was introduced to this piece by Mark Aguhar, may she rest in peace. These are the axes:

   1. Bodies are inherently valid

   2. Remember death 

   3. Be ugly

   4. Know beauty

   5. It is complicated

   6. Empathy

   7. Choice

   8. Reconstruct, reify

   9. Respect, negotiate

3. I reminded myself that doing good things for other people isn’t just about spiritual gratification or revelation, it is simply the right thing to do.

4. I thought about the nature of prayer. Is it a question? A supplication? A conversation? Or something else?

5. I rediscovered my love of going to the movies, even when it turns out that movie is bad.

6. Solitude is powerful, as long as you don’t let yourself drown in it.

7. Silence is sacred.

8. When in doubt, go back to the water.