Through Stained Glass: Lent Day 2

Brigid gazes into the burnt prairie at Kickapoo Park. 
She would walk on some of the ashes, turning her
white paws black. A reminder of her mortality, too. 

 

     Lent is an ancient word for springtime; it designates a season of burgeoning inner and outer life. Too often, Lent has been misunderstood as a time of grim repentance, but it is meant to be a time of joy, the joy of a fresh start, the joy that greening meadows and blossoming trees proclaim each spring. It is a season to remind us of God’s goodness and mercy. Just as God cares for the flowers of the field and the Bluebirds of the air, so God cares for us – you and me!

        Yesterday was Ash Wednesday. I love this holy day in the church. It helps me to remember that one day, I will die. That one day, I will complete my baptism, and as the liturgy assures us, I will “gather at the life-giving river” that flows from God’s presence. From the cradle to the grave, in this life and the next, we belong to God – this is what we proclaim in our baptism liturgy – and why we remember our baptism every week. Ash Wednesday reminds us that as much as we want to identify with our career, relationships, or material goods, none of those matters. Impermanence is real, and like those flowers of the field, our stuff, and ultimately us, will wither and fade away.

        But that’s not the end of that line, right? It’s from Isaiah 40 and reads in its entirety, “The grass withers; the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.” These lines are part of a poem written to a people returning from exile proclaiming to them that God will deliver on Their promises. I love how Corrine Carvhalo puts it when she writes, “[The people] have sinned, but God has remained true. They have sinned, but God has stayed true.” [The Working Preacher] The story they tell, however, is that God doesn’t care if they live or die – I mean, they are in exile, after all!

        And yet, the poem begins back in verse 1 about comfort – and God’s movement to comfort God’s people. Instead of punishing or placing the people on some naughty list like a divine Santa Claus, God comforts the people. The movement of God is one of care, concern, and compassion. God does not want God’s people to suffer. And though this text isn’t promising that suffering will end, it does speak to the good news that God enters our suffering with us. I like what my professor Greg Hillis says about this when he writes, “If we come to understand that God suffers alongside us as one who truly knows what it means to suffer, our anger morphs into love, and our suffering mysteriously becomes a means of transformation.” [America: The Jesuit Review]

        Lent is about transformation. And the promise of God’s presence in it – the withering and the growing, the living and the dying. I thought about this when I walked Tecumseh and Brigid at Kickapoo Park. Yesterday, I believe, the rangers did the yearly control burn on the prairie part of the park. The faded flowers, dead grass, and yellows accompanying this time of year were black – like the ashes on my forehead yesterday. As the wind blew, I could see ashes form tiny twisters that rolled across the prairie. But I also saw Bluebirds that looked like those mythical winged animals rising from the ashes!

        The image is dramatic, but it is appropriate for Lent. Burning the prairie helps Native Plants outgrow the invasive ones and weeds. I understand that weeds and other annual plants are set back by burning the above-ground vegetation in early spring to give room for the hardy, preferred prairie plants below. Lent is this for us as a people of faith. It is time we ‘burn’ back whatever stands in our way of becoming who God longs us to be. It is a time to remind ourselves that everything we insist on defining us will wither and fade away – but our belovedness will remain! Lent is when we empty ourselves of all the expectations and ‘shoulds’ we tell ourselves to tend to the garden of our being – fanning the flame of the Risen Christ dwelling within. It is when we plant the seeds of our becoming and then tend to them the way God tends to us – with tenderness, gentleness, and mercy.

        The prairie field at Kickapoo Park is all ash. But from that death, new life will soon emerge. Red-winged Blackbirds will perch on Sunflowers, and Rabbits will burrow in the brush. Transformation is happening – even if it looks ashy and dead.

        The flowers fade, and the grass withers, but the word of God remains.

        We live, and we die, but God’s presence remains.

    Lent always gives way to resurrection. Still, the weeds grow. Let us be courageous in emptying ourselves of all the invasive thoughts so we may hear that still, small voice that declares to us, “You are my beloved!”

Bluebird perched on a Sycamore tree at Kickapoo Park