Today is Ash Wednesday, humbling introduction to a long holy dry spell, marked with ashes and sealed with repentance.For whatever reason, my own internal compass always drifts toward penitence around this time of year, and it's easy to get caught up in the humbling awareness of my own faults and weaknesses. But this morning I finished the Gospel of Thomas and embarked on The Cloud of Unknowing, another obscure Christian text full of contemplative wisdom. And as a welcome to Lent present I was given this heartening image:
"Therefore he kindled your desire with greatest grace, and attached to it a leash of longing."
This yearning to serve, this humbling desire to overcome the petty foibles that keep us from becoming all we were born to be -- all of it is a gift, drawing us closer to the Love that nurtured us before our birth, that soothes us through our sorrows, shelters us in the storm, and waits for us behind that door we are so afraid to open.
In the service that marks Ash Wednesday, we are invited to walk around the room, the Episcopal tradition of passing the peace. But today, it wasn't just peace we shared; it was forgiveness as well; a simple phrase almost easier to say to strangers than to those we know, those we've hurt, or been hurt by. But to say it -- and mean it -- and for it to be heard...the peace of that moment was like a deep clear rush of water.
So I look at this picture, which I wasn't sure I understood when I created it, and I think: take that step. Make that offering. Grab the leash of longing -- and hang on.
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