Anita at Feeling the Light is emailing out contemplative prompts throughout this year’s season of Lent. If you are interested in delving into your own spiritual formation, feel free to take these prompts and answer them for yourselves!
See the poem below. Perhaps meditate on it, see what arises, then write.
Te Deum by Charles Reznikoff, 1894-1976
Not because of victories
I sing,
having none,
but for the common sunshine,
the breeze,
the largess of the spring.Not for victory
but for the day’s work done
as well as I was able;
not for a seat upon the dais
but at the common table.
[Sidenote: I just found out that the Greek Easter is later than the one in the United States, so the Greek Lenten season doesn’t begin until March 14. I think these spiritual formation prompts will be like a pre-Lent spiritual preparation for me, and then when real Lent happens, I will focus on the physical aspect of not eating meat like the rest of the Greeks who will fast. …Will I not eat meat?? I don’t know. I kind of want to, but MEAT.]
Okay, so Reznikoff’s poem. Continue reading
I realize that a part of me must also have been implanted somewhere along the way with the kind of curiosity inherent in people who ultimately stuff all their worldly possessions into a backpack and disappear for months at a time. What happens when we lose the things that anchor us? What if, instead of grasping at something to hold on to, we pull up our roots and walk away? Instead of trying to find the way back, we walk deeper and deeper into the woods, willing ourselves to get lost. In this place where nothing is recognizable, not the people or the language or the food, we are truly on our own. Eventually, we find ourselves unencumbered by the past or the future. Here is a fleeting glimpse of our truest self, our self in the present moment. After that, maybe we can finally go home–or maybe not.
There is nothing I can say about The Martian that hasn’t already been said. It’s as good as the hype! It’s a technically dense book that somehow makes mechanical engineering exciting. It’s an survival story that captures the loneliness and desperation of space travel. It’s a rescue operation that builds the tension to the breaking point over and over again.
It Is Trish 