Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Tiny Little Flowers, Crooked Little Stitches

Lent is one of those seasons that I've never found particularly easy to navigate. Advent always seems too short -- we love the ritual of lighting candles and singing Advent hymns. Even Epiphany, though it doesn't have many traditional rituals associated with it, feels festive and hopeful.

Lent is all about wilderness time, preparation time, cleaning time. And while all of those things are good, none of them is easy. I've been realizing this Lent how hard it can be to "de-clutter" inwardly, and to focus strength and heart and eyes. I know what we're moving toward is important: the path to the cross, and then to the empty tomb.

Our Monday night fellowship group is helping me focus. We're reading Sarah Parsons' book A Clearing Season, which invites you to "map your wilderness" -- the particular inner wilderness of your own heart. Guess what? Going there can be overwhelming, even frightening. But it's a place we're called to go, remembering that Jesus was called into the wilderness, and that God was with him in his deepest temptations and hungers. God will be with us too.

I'm finding that very small practices are helping me journey this year. The patience of looking each morning at the tiny little "greenhouse" that the sweet girl and I sowed impatiens seeds in at the beginning of February. It sits on her windowsill, where it can get the light from the east. Just a few days ago, several of the seeds finally sprouted. They are tiny, I mean tiny! But green.

The patience of trying to learn to crochet. I am just about the least crafty person on the planet, and why I have had a yen to learn to crochet in the past year is beyond me. I am clumsy with my fingers, and even simple instructions take me a while to figure out. But today I did a good-sized foundation row (no, haven't figured out how to do the actual stitch to connect rows yet, but I'll get there) and those crooked little green yarn stitches spoke to my heart too. They took time, patience, focus of a sort that I don't often give to anything these days that I don't have to give focus to. Trying to learn to crochet is teaching me stillness, not to mention humility.

Sips, small sips, of my Lenten reading. I am loving Allen Ross' book on Biblical Worship, which I mentioned here several days ago. But I have resisted any urge to speed through it, as is my normal reading speed. I am sipping, trying to taste and to contemplate what I'm tasting.

This Lent I am trying to slow down. It's a lost art. As a friend in the fellowship group last night commented, the word "idle" can be found in the middle of the word "wilderness." I had been focusing on the word "wild" but hadn't even seen the word "idle." We talked about how wild a thing it is, in our day and age, to just be idle. I think it's something I need to re-learn.

2 comments:

Erin said...

I know what you mean about finding time to be idle, or to devote to new pursuits. I've been really struggling to devote time to the guitar; I was so excited about getting one, but I seem to lack the patience to struggle through the early learning process. I'm trying to correct that this year...

Beth said...

Oh wow, do I hear you. "Struggle through the early learning process" is a good way to put it. I am finding I don't have much patience or perseverance for that either, and I so want that to change.

I will pray that you'll be encouraged to keep at the guitar practice! I think that would be a wonderful accomplishment to have, and you have such a love for music and lyrics. Just think how it would inspire your song-writing skills!

I remember going to a concert by Phil Keaggy several years ago. He is an amazing guitarist. One of the things he said that really stuck with me (though I translated his comment about creativity to my writing pursuits mainly) is that when it comes to creativity, you need to go into something for the love of it and not be afraid to try new things and utterly fail. That thought has helped me many a time when I've put words on paper and not been at all sure what I'm doing, or whether what I wrote had any value at all. Maybe it's a helpful thing to think about when considering new artistic/creative endeavors too!