I am unprepared and unready for Lent.
Ash Wednesday Mass this morning was a change again from last year. Mercifully a gentle, reverent liturgy, hallowed by beautiful voices and solemn dignity. It should have set the scene for a focused, prayerful Lent. That it didn't was not in the Liturgy but more within myself.
Reflecting, I consider that perhaps it has been an uncharacteristically long and deep bout of depression these last few months that leaves me too fragile to face the symbols of Ash Wednesday. Death and sin. Sin, I am too uncomfortably aware of but death is another matter. Death is much harder to make sense of when I have been coming far too close to self inflicted death. Not of course that this suicidal impulse is new, nor sometimes does it matter that over time I have learned to manage it so that it doesn't actually result in death.
It stalks me.
Haunts me.
And I wonder what grace has kept me from such terrible self harm, when others, especially my young nephew succumbed and died of suicide.
And now I must find a way to move through Lent, and allow this saving grace to work within my life once more.
I was so glad to see a new post from you pop up on my sidebar, but I am deeply sobered to read it. Know that you have friends, even friends you have never "met," who would be bereft were you to destroy yourself. I hope that Lent becomes a time of the gentle flowering of inner peace for you.
ReplyDeleteOh my friend. Like Robin I am grateful to see a post from you. And hear you on the depths of despair. I get how it can haunt one...and am grateful that you have tools and resources to keep you moving through times like these. I hope you contnue to move through this. Know that you are loved, even by people who have never met you in real life.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI truly do understand. And I will be praying for you and for all of us this Lent.
ReplyDeleteStrange how always there is a tug toward Life, and you are all part of that flow. Grace again.
ReplyDelete