Reflections

Are you willing to be sponged out, erased, cancelled, made nothing? Are you willing to be made nothing? dipped into oblivion? If not, you will never really change. The phoenix renews her youth only when she is burnt, burnt alive, burnt down to hot and flocculent ash. Then the small stirring of a new small bub in the nest with strands of down like floating ash shows that she is renewing her youth like the eagle, immortal bird. -D. H. Lawrence (found at Anchors and Masts) I am both drawn to the quote above and turned away at the same

To be able to enjoy fully the many good things the world has to offer, we must be detached from them. To be detached does not mean to be indifferent or uninterested. It means to be nonpossessive. Life is a gift to be grateful for and not a property to cling to. A nonpossessive life is a free life. But such freedom is only possible when we have a deep sense of belonging. To whom then do we belong? We belong to God, and the God to whom we belong has sent us into the world to proclaim in (God’s)

  As I walked into the woods on my Ash Wednesday retreat last week I was dazzled by droplets of water shimmering all around me.  Here I was entering the Lenten desert and everything in creation sang to me of viriditas, or the greening power of God.  Life was exploding forth before me in this damp forest, the air heavy with moisture, the ground springing beneath my feet.  When I saw the leaf in the bottom photo with its offering of holy water, I remembered my own baptism.  Lent is deeply connected to baptism.  Jesus went out into the desert after he was

There’s a really deep well inside me. And in it dwells God. Sometimes I am there, too. But more often stones and grit block the well, and God is buried beneath. Then (God) must be dug out again. -Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life Lent is often associated with the desert, for good reason.  The desert figures prominently in the scriptures as a place of testing and refining.  Lent is a time when we consciously let go of those things or habits that take our attention away from the sacred presence that is always among us.  Some people focus more energy