SACRED SATURDAY

Today will be my last post here for this season.  I am not even adding today in the count down.  My Lenten season countdown ended yesterday.  But today is something I still want to write about.  Today is where I live.  

I grew up going to church at least four times over the the Easter weekend.  Once on Thursday, once on Friday and twice on Sunday. Five times if one included the Lenten Wednesday service.  Needless to say... for a youth, it was harrowing.  But one day stood out in that week.  It was Saturday.  We had a reprieve from church.  It was breathing space for a girl who went to church because it was required of her, but she rarely if ever voiced her inner discontent with it.  

I never spent much time wondering what Saturday was all about.  Why didn't that day deserve a service of some kind? Why didn't the people gather and reflect on what that space in between death and life meant.  We never talked about it.  We just saw "death" and then waited for "life" because it came every year.  There was no sadness because "death" was not permanent.  

This religious event in my life didn't teach me about the reality of death.  When death came in my life, there wasn't life in two days.  There was sadness and sorrow and pain and heartache and Saturday existed where Sunday did not.  

Now I have the freedom to sit in Saturday.  I will let Sunday go as if it were another day of the week.  I let the loss permeate my being and I find meaning in what is now Sacred to me.  

I do want to send out a special thank you to all my AFL sojourners.  Your words and companionship have been a great part of this journey.  Thank you for your wisdom and vulnerability.  Thank you for being available to listen and love.  Thank you!

Day 45: Bad Friday

 

Like Poplar Sunday, I have a strong desire to rename today to "Bad Friday".  I could do some added research to discover the reason that today was labeled "Good", and I would probably find out that it has something to do with the atonement theory.  

I've seen over time that it is human nature for most people to want to colour over the pain, loss and sadness.  We as humans wouldn't survive long as a species if we dwelled in the pits of life for too long.  So we take our sadness and try to spin it for something beneficial.  We look for character building moments in our tragedies.  We look for a rainbow after a storm.  We look for some way (to use a phrase from a common worship song) to  "trade our sorrows".  Maybe that is why today is called "Good" 

But what if we just had the opportunity to sit in the gravity of the the story of that Friday (if it even was a Friday).  Every year, millions of people gather for a traditional service to "remember" the events of the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth.  How often in those services can someone remove themselves from the repetitive liturgy and traditional practices to sit in the sadness.  I don't think we can.  It's not in us to leave the picture and it's lines without what a crayon provides.  We need to colour in the picture.  It is incomplete without it.  Or maybe it isn't. 

Today is Bad Friday because it was really was a bad day.  

Day 44: Sad Easter

 I want to scream right now.  I want to let the world know that I have had enough.  "UNDERSTAND ME, OKAY?"

I can't even explain myself in detail and get a corresponding... "Okay, I understand."  Maybe it would have been better to hide in the closet.  Maybe little Enneagram 4 needs a kick in the pants.  The world doesn't want my authenticity.  The world doesn't want my grief.  They want my joy,  my happiness, my laughter... they don't want my sadness and my pain.  

Easter is painful, like Christmas is painful.  The world is happy because Jesus is born or Jesus is alive... "So let's celebrate!".  It would be much easier if I could be apathetic, but I'm not.  I hurt and I hurt bad.  This is real.  Maybe it is easier for some to sweep me under the carpet and pretend that I haven't lost the biggest thing in my life.  

What is this going to do for any pain or loss I encounter in the future?  How will I receive people's affection and compassion for any other loss I will experience?  If the biggest loss of my life goes unnoticed, will I ever be able to feel like my sadness matters. 

Day 43: Toxic tulips

There are three days left before the end of this leg of the journey.  Writing every day isn't easy.  I don't know why I still do it, but somehow, my fingers don't want to retire yet.  

I probably won't do AFL next year.  Maybe this year was too much, hard to know.  I got a few things out of it, but it wasn't quite as transformative as my first run through last year.  Maybe some things are just best done only once.  

Next year Good Friday will be a different experience for me.  I am debating what to do for Lent next year with the end landing on my birthday.  Maybe Authentic Lent will be a different journey, not including atheists or theists or mystics.  

I enjoy the challenge of my writing spurts.  It keeps me exercised and practiced in the art of expressing my thoughts.  Maybe one more way to prevent Alzheimer's.  

I learned something last week... Tulips are toxic for cats.  It is a bummer.  I knew a lot of plants don't go well with the feline variety, that is why I don't have them in my house.  But my neighbour brought some tulips over and it was the first time in a long time that someone brought me flowers.  Most people close to me know that I can't have flowers in the house.  But I kept them... and that lasted a short time and I ended up taking them out and laying them on my neighbour's grave.  How can something so beautiful be so toxic? 

Day 42: Tasting the pain

 

She welcomed each guest into her home.  Each had come with an invitation from her own hands.  She knew some, others, she had only heard of.  No one brought flowers or cards.  She had requested that they come without any offerings, except what was inside of them.  

As the guests found a place to sit down, she looked over the faces.  There were no smiles, no laughter, no tears.  Their sullen faces told only one story.  They had come because they had tasted. 

A knock on the door brought her away from the gazes of her guests.  She opened the door to find her best friend.  They looked in each others eyes for only a moment before came the interruption of words.

"Why didn't I get an invitation?" her friend asked.  "I have been your friend for thirty years.  There is nothing we have not done together.  We were playmates and confidants.  I stood up for you at your wedding, you stood up for me at mine.  We are best friends. Your husband died and yet I am not invited to your home.  Why can't I be with you in this sad time? 

She looked with compassion at her friend.  This woman had been with her for decades of joy and laughter.  They shared so many days of love together.  But when she had penned the invitations to this event, this great sadness, her friends name didn't make the list.  

"Yes, you are right.  We have been friends for so many years.  We have been playmates and confidants.  We stood up for each other as we started our journeys of marriage.  There isn't a joy we haven't shared.  I am grateful for all those times and thankful for the love we have shared.  

"Then why have I not been invited to your husband's memorial?  Why can't I sit with those who have gathered to walk you through this loss?

"Because as much as you have shared my joy and love, you have never tasted loss.  You have lived your life avoiding heartache and death.  Maybe one day you will, but until then... If you have never tasted your own pain, how can you taste mine? 

* * * 

I think, like food, pain can be present, but not tasted.  Bread crumbs swept under a carpet instead of consumed... that is untasted pain.  There are so many ways to live with pain and loss and not take it in, stay with it, consume it.  I personally think death is untasted when "Heaven" is embraced.  The loss is temporary.  "Heaven" becomes a place where we can have it all again.  It's kind of like having Easter Sunday two days after Good Friday.  There is no time to be sad.  It seems like it's a performance... but there is no tasting the loss of that which is presented.  

Most have been conditioned to see death as a hiccup in the total experience.  It is seen in how we talk of death to children and even adults.  What if we are doing a great disservice to people by not giving then the chance to sit in their loss and in their pain.  

Here is how the gathering ended...

* * * 

After she left her friend at the open door, she returned to her guests.  

"I have asked that you come here, without flowers, without cards, without anything but the pain that dwells in the core of your being.  I ask that you give me only that.  Share your pain, share your loss.  Let this be a place where the fragrance of your shared sadness becomes greater than the scent of any roses or carnations.  That is the best gift you can give me today." 

And she sat down in silence and tasted their pain.  

Day 41: Finding Figment

"God exists for those who imagine God

God doesn't exist for those who imagine something else" 

Ruby Neumann

Lent is coming to an end soon.  This is the last week.  I am glad to be done with the conversations around the existence or non-existence of "God".  I am content to return to being a loving partner to my husband, playing with my cats, visiting my mother once in a while and take her on an occasional road trip.  Life goes on.  Our imaginations will be our companion on this journey.  

My parents, my sister and I went to Disney World/Epcot Center in 1985.  I fell in love with Figment on my first day there.  Figment was the mascot of one of the Epcot attractions called "Journey to Imagination".  He was a lovable looking purple dragon.  It took three days of walking by gift shops before I could take home a stuffed version of Figment.  I still have that stuffie somewhere in my collection.  He became my favourite stuffie of all time.  I never got a t-shirt.  I was allowed one memorabilia from Disney World, and I chose Figment.  

I had a wild love for the idea of Imagination.  I could be, go, or do anything I wanted to in the realm of imagination.  That love gave birth to my creativity.  My world became more livable, joyful and meaningful... all because of a little thing called imagination.  That little dragon Figment was the picture of that for me.  

Imagination plays a very different role for me now.  It helps me understand religion and spirituality a lot more.  It helps me understand humanity a lot more.  We as humans need imagination in our lives.  We need to stretch ourselves beyond ourselves.  Imagination does that.  It largely explains religion.  We use that creativity within us to give us something beyond that we can't experience with our own senses.  

But most adherents to religion will not claim imagination as the ground for their religious practices and beliefs.  For them, imagination has moved into the realm of reality.  I think that is where the power of imagination lies.  Somehow, we can embrace our hopes, wishes, longings so hard that they start to become real.  This might just be what the Journey to Imagination is all about.  This is what being human is all about.  We are given limitations in our existence and it seems it's up to us to go farther than those limitations.  

What drew me to that purple dragon was his uniqueness.  It seemed that most people went to the Disney parks for Mickey Mouse.  I wasn't into the normal even back then. I wanted something or someone that wasn't the norm.  That dragon invited me on a journey and that was exciting for me.  

Today... I am still on the journey.  Every day can take me on turns and around bends that still give me something to hope for and dream about.  That is what I find beautiful, and that is what I found when I found Figment. 

Day 40: The Holy Hole

 

Last year, I christened this day as Poplar Sunday. It was my way of finding spiritual relevance in my place in the planet instead of depending on a tropical narrative that really didn't inspire me.  

The poplar leaves aren't out yet, in fact, this morning, we had another dusting of snow.  So the imagery is out of season, but does it really matter.  I just want something from my Canadian world to relate to.  Is that so much to ask? 

This coming week, I am asked if I can embrace the lack.  Does that also mean that I get to embrace the struggle as well.  I read that somewhere.  I wonder if the idea of peace still can include struggle.  I personally think it's a pipe dream that I have all this figured out.  That is why I call it a journey.  And in reality... a journey with no real destination at the end.  Maybe that imagery looks more like aimless wandering, but what if that is all that life is... aimless wandering.  

My life can be the poster of aimless wandering.  I didn't grow up with a big academic dream that I brought to fruition a few years out of high school.  I just grew up and found things to do.  I remember telling my nephew something like this.  "If you can't figure out what you want to do when you "grow up"... just do something."

I can tell him again that maybe all of life is about "just doing something". Maybe it's okay of some of us we never "grow up".  The world needs some people to be focused performers, and the world also needs people on a journey.  

I woke up this morning with a muddle of thoughts in my brain.  I wondered if any of them will find a place of rest.  I wonder what it would look like for me to just wake up and be okay to just be.  Maybe that is the lack in my life.  Maybe that is the "holy hole"...   Interesting...  Mmmmm... 

Day 39: A day for Fools

 

It is evening again, which is a good indicator that I am losing steam with the AFL content.  At the beginning, I had inspiration in the morning and now... not so much.  

Today, there is inspiration of another kind.  It is the beginning of April and someone somewhere decided to give today over to "Fools".  According to Google sources, the tradition of April Fools goes back to the Middle ages.  I don't know.  I can't say I had great memories of April Fools Day as a child.  I was always the brunt of jokes... but I don't remember them from classmates... I remember them from my mother.  Mom like April Fools and didn't waste too many opportunities to mess with us on that day.  Mothers are to be trusted, so I had no problem falling for Mom's misdirections every years. 

I didn't call her today.  I figure today is a good day not to have a conversation with my mom, because I don't know if I can still trust her on this day.  Maybe she has let that sly side of her dissipate with age... but why take the chance. 

I did something today. I started a book fast.  I am fasting from reading books for a year.  How's that for a good April Fool's gag.  We will see how long it lasts.  I am hoping that a year away from books will give me a renewed interest in reading again.  My passion has waned and it depresses me.  I share more about this in my book blog.  

If books are the road to wisdom, maybe going without them for a year is the road to foolishness.  So today is a good day to start this journey.