Perspective. Balance. Centeredness. Vision. These are the things that most of us are wanting. While parking at the store to buy syrup for our Church’s Fat Tuesday Pancake dinner, I was screamed at by a woman in a Mercedes. I parallel parked, and then looked up after finishing to find her waiting in her car with the windows up, tightly idling alongside my car in the street. She looked angry, impatiently waiting for me to notice her. I rolled down my window and then saw (without hearing) her scream at me through her window. Concerned, as I couldn’t understand her, I motioned inquisitively for her to roll down the window. She then cussed me out, telling me that I almost scratched her car. She blamed me as a public menace for parallel parking without using my blinker. A flip of her hand, a turn of her head and she sped off the 15 feet to the stop sign before turning left. Encountering her – although that doesn’t seem quite the right word – managed to piss me off and spoil my mood for the next half and hour. Why was she so bitchy? Why would she take the time to wait to scream at me first through a closed window, and then an opened one? Why did I let such a rude, seemingly hate-full shout-fest ruin 30 minutes of my day?
In the noise of my daily life in urban Bay Area California, I find that I am consistently pulled into a boisterous brouhaha that encircles me. From screaming drivers, to complainers in the line near me, to shoppers who can’t be bothered to look up from their phone as they bump into me in the aisle of the grocery store, or the check out line, it seems that there is a societal-wide anger that things aren’t how they should be, that the glass is only half-full. Is it malaise? Is it entitlement? Is it being cluelessly narcissistic, or narcissistically clueless? Is it misplaced, or projected anger? Is it a spiritual problem, or an emotional one? I think it’s probably not just one thing that causes this quick-to-raise-your-voice-publically-anger. And yet we are either victims or perpetrators of what we’ve all experienced, and none have enjoyed.
Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day in the season of Lent: a time of spiritual preparation lasting for the period of 40 days, or roughly the 6 weeks before Easter. In the ancient world, it was a time of catechism, instruction and practice before new believers would become Christian by choice, confession and action on Easter morning through baptism. It’s a time in which things are stripped away, or said differently that we give things up, in order to have a more balanced focus of life, our life, other people, and how God was and is in all of it. I’ve given up chocolate, caffeine, other things for Lent to gain focus. I’ve also taken on other practices – giving money away, praying in silence, meditation and Bible reading in the same vane of gaining focus and sight. What works one year, might not the next. What works for you, might not work for me, or vice versa.
This year I’ll be writing each day of Lent offering some sort of practice, in view of regaining focus, expanding spiritual balance, enlargening perspective and deepening centeredness. If you want to take that journey with me I’m suggesting a daily ritual intended to tie together our bodies, minds and spirits.
Select a particular glass, or small vase in your house. You’ll use it every day for the next 40 days. In the morning fill it up. Then leave it on your windowsill, the counter, or somewhere else stable. At the end of your day, pour out the water slowly so that the glass is empty. Several religious traditions talk about emptying and filling. It’s a key concept in buddhism and is one of the major metaphors for the life of Jesus who incarnated God. When you fill up the glass in the morning, be mindful of how you need God to fill you up, renew you, rejuvenate you, or even heal you. While you empty the glass, pass your day before your mind’s eye. As you pour out the water, think of how you poured yourself out during the day – living for others, living with others, seeking to practice God’s presence. Each night the glass will be empty before you refill it in the morning. It’s a physical image of the trust that God will renew us. If you’d rather you can think of how you were filled up, encouraged, loved by God directly or through others the day before. And you could be mindful – challenging yourself – as you empty your glass, reflecting on how you gave of yourself, pouring yourself out in love for others during the day – through words, actions, presence with those who know, who know you, who you don’t know…and maybe even your enemies. If you find it helpful journal about these things…so that you keep them in your mind.
Do this practice every morning and night, daily for the next 40 days. Each Wednesday I’ll blog about this practice in this series of Lenten practices. Feel free to share on the blog what you hear, experience or receive in doing this practice.