Silence and Simplicity
Most years I have come to long for Lent, and this year perhaps more than most. I’m not sure how I was first initiated into practicing this season but it likely began with noticing the change in liturgical colours decorating my rural Protestant church. Purple must have captured my imagination. It was only because I had a couple of Catholic friends that I grew into a practice of abstaining from some rich treat in my youth. My church camp friends and I would gather for a large, collaborative Good Friday service each year and we would celebrate the end of Lent together. The fasting was preparation both for celebrating Easter and the accompanying reunion.
Now middle-aged and much wearied by the last few years, Ash Wednesday has become a sober reminder of my own finitude and brokenness. The darkness within and beyond is haunting. A dark smudge of ash in the shape of a cross invites me to begin the seasonal journey: 40 days plus Sundays to mirror Jesus’ 40 days of fasting and being tested. Jesus’ wandering up in the desert, overlooking Jericho and the land beyond was certainly one of sifting truths versus lies. It was a time of locking into His Father’s voice so when the crowds got louder and the pressures mounted He would know that familiar, leading voice. Only with the security of that familiar voice would Jesus be able to take the journey laid out for Him that would lead through death on a cross.
Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.
I’ve found it particularly noisy in my head of late. Social media, news headlines and broken people’s voices have been swirling around causing trauma and aggravating familiar wounds and weaknesses. I’m in need of more kindness than I’m able to offer to others or myself. My mental health has suffered significantly. I talk to my therapist. I meet with a pastor support staff member. I reach out to those who know me best. But the one thing more I need is to turn down the noise.
I join Jesus in the wilderness for a moment. No media. No people. Only creation interrupting the conversation between Him and His Father. Or maybe punctuating the conversation. In the wilderness, there is no rush. In this place, the cosmic, eternal perspective of the Creator might just be perceivable. There is a buzz of worship that one can tune into in wild places that my spirit often is drawn to join. Life jittering its song of acknowledgement. Jesus, dusty and windswept receiving counsel for the ministry ahead while being tempted by the very decisions that could derail the whole thing.
I don’t have the luxury of fully escaping to the wilderness today. I have children to care for, a job to do. But in these 40 days, I intentionally move towards more silence. I move away from social media and turn the news stream down to a drip. I know the big things to pray for anyway and this is a season to have more conversations with my Creator and fewer conversations with political pundits. I choose practices that release me to acknowledge my relative insignificance —in the healthiest of ways rather than in a hopeless manner. I go for more walks. I embrace more routines so there are fewer decisions to be made (the constant decisions make a lot of noise).
Fasting also seems to move me to simplicity. There is a lingering nugget from those youthful days. Now, rather than one thing, I simplify and lighten my food intake. In recent years I’ve embraced eating vegan through Lent. And I’m a terrible cook, so it is always quite simple and repetitious. After every Lenten season more of this practice lingers into the rest of the year. I find this move simplifies my life a little. Fewer decisions as well as less indulging my flesh. My anxiety so often finds its way to my stomach and somehow lightening my food intake simultaneously heals my mind. Or perhaps it’s that I am nudged to prayer and sorting through to the root of my anxiety rather than just gnawing on something and flipping on my phone.
More silence. More simplicity. Lighten my presence on the earth in favour of increasing my time reaching for the eternal. Less temporal noise, more voice of the Holy Eternal one.
Remember, you are a sinner. Remember, you are forgiven
I know this journey ends in celebration.
Triumphant Easter proclamations of Ressurection.
People gathering and exclaiming.
Spring bursting forth.
And perhaps this year, proper gatherings complete with food and fun and festivities.
I know this ends with the retelling of the cosmic shift that took place as a result of an empty tomb.
But not yet.
I need this wilderness journey first to lighten and quiet me.
I will allow silence and simplicity to change me.
And perhaps prepare me for the ministry ahead.