Living In Time

Photo by Zach Lezniewicz on Unsplash

I grew up with an idea of the Christian Liturgical church calendar that I carried into adulthood. Lent is a really bummer of a time…

Perhaps you know this time if you’ve been part of this kind of church tradition. Lent starts with Ash Wednesday, when the sign of the cross is made with ashes, drawn on a person’s forehead, as the words are spoken: from dust you come, and to dust you shall return. The time ends with a horrific murder. And the 40 days in between? These are the days of sacrifice and emptying, walking toward suffering and death.

All I knew of this time as a child was that it was the time I was supposed to “give something up.” What on earth does that mean to a small human in the 1980’s? It was supposed to be something “bad for me,” so, what then? Give up candy? Sweets? Give up Saturday morning cartoons? There weren’t a lot choices.

It wasn’t until I had to face my own finite existence and come to the startling reality that I was fragile, unable to work my way into perfection, more easily stripped of strength and all my outer facades than I could possibly have imagined, that I began to understand Lent a little more. It took some time, but after I watched my beautiful, too young friend, who was a woman doing “all the right things” die, I began to see this time of walking forward as the beautiful and horrendous call for humanity—even knowing that at the end of the walk I’ll meet mortality’s sting, possible suffering, and even the unfairness of life.

Yoga brought me into my body and this time of Lent starts with a reminder of the body. From dust we come and to dust we shall return. This is a kind of apocalyptic reality, and it feels like we’re in apocalyptic times. What do I mean by this? Apocalypse is sometimes understood only to mean destruction, but the meaning of it is also “a revealing or unveiling.” This is also part of Lent, and of these current days. There is suffering and unfairness and death and destruction, and all of that should be seen, not hidden, pretending it is not. How else do we uncover what is most important, what is true and good and beautiful, the love that is greater than all of it, the love that is worth abiding in and walking forward with?

Today, I’m considering the body—my own and the great body of humanity, of nature, of the earth itself. In yoga philosophy there is a belief that when we come to a great unveiling, the dust is cleared from the eyes of the heart and we realize we are more than our body. Yet, I remember a time when in my own finitude, my fragility, I thought my body was betraying me. What story had I believed? When I could no longer do, I was worthless. When I’d come to the end of my own resources, when all my effort led to results that I could not predict and didn’t want to own at all, when all the work seemed for naught because of the unfairness of the results I was receiving, what lie did I turn to?

I see this on a bigger scale now, too—the way I’ve believed that life should be predictable, that things and people that appear steady and that I’ve taken for granted will always be there, that fairness and goodness, not domination and destruction, should win the day.

The time that Lent remembers didn’t appear that way either. Domination, destruction appeared to win the day. Someone steady and good was taken away. Or so it appeared. But if I read a little further, indeed there is an apocalypse, an unveiling, all the horrific dust brushed away from the eyes of the hearts of those who were willing to see.

This finite body will carry me so far. And then? I do not know, but I do believe, no matter how often I forget, that the permanent force of love does eventually overcome, and that everything else is made of impermanence.

See, I told you Lent is a kind of a bummer. I’m not great at pretending that life is always sunshine and roses, but I see those, too—sunshine and roses, that is. So what about all that giving up of something? I’ve come to understand that it’s not about being good or making up for something bad. I’m not cleansing and really the sacrifice isn’t one at all. I’ve come to understand that this kind of giving up is intended to remove the covering of dust, to remove the distractions causing me to hook onto one story that only sees the facade, and instead to reveal what is most important. This uncovering is meant to let me truly see the sunshine and the roses and all that is so beautiful, AND the particular suffering that I can be made available to care for. Maybe it’s not a bummer after all.

Living in time means that I am willing to walk forward even as I know that what I hope for, what I think my body and the human body and the earth body deserve, may not be what I live to see. But walking forward all the same. I know I need some particular practices to strengthen my spirit and body for this walk forward and I am choosing to give up some things that feel like they’re not right for this time. I’m finding that every time I go into Facebook or Instagram, I am not only made aware of another horror, I am also consuming everyone’s emotional state. So I’ll be going off of social media for the whole of Lent (we’ll see what happens after that), but you can stay in touch with me here or reach out to me personally.

I am still hosting a Friday morning yoga class most mornings at 9AM, which is live both in person locally in Shepherdstown, WV and online via Zoom. This is an adapted class and I’m happy to share a link with anyone who emails me a request to jalayoga.christa@gmail.com.

And I’ll be leading a marvelous group to Portugal for a week-long wellness retreat with amazing food, yoga, the ocean, and community, September 28-October 4. You can learn more and sign up for that here: Portugal Wellness Retreat

In the meantime, be well friends. May we each and all find and cultivate the practices that strengthen us for these days ahead. May we have good and wise teachers, practices that allow us to breathe fully and keep our legs steady, and a community that supports us and reminds us of what is most true and important.

I’ll leave you this week with a final blessing poem from Kate Bowler:

Blessing to See Clearly, from Kate Bowler

Yes, we will grieve,
but not as those in denial.
We will suffer,
but not as those entombed
in loneliness.

We will join the ranks of afflicted,
the weak, and the vulnerable.

We do it willingly. (Okay, not always.)
But we are being shown
what is plastic and what is gold.

We are drawn forward by glimpses
of something better—
a world where cruelty and injustice
cannot sustain themselves,
where the cycles of harm
finally collapse
under their own weight.

Once you’ve seen it,
you can’t unsee it.

Blessed are we
who now know the value
of what must be let go
and what must be held tightly.

May we carry forward
only what is true,
what is good,
what is beautiful
trusting this:
love never fails.