Talking Back: Celebration

Lent begins today.

I wasn't going to do anything about that.

Then I read Andrea's first post on God in the Yard. I love that she has resolved to play, even as part of the religious world descends into a form of mourning and purposeful deprivation.

I also read the next chapter I was supposed to read along this journey... chapter 4, Weep: Celebration.

And suddenly I knew I would create my own Lenten celebration. It would be a form of play, though it would also recognize a sense of sorrow. It would include collecting Nelson's elements of celebration recounted in God in the Yard: sound, gestures, natural elements, handmade items, and food.

I am not sure how I will gather my elements over 40 days, what I will make of them. Maybe nothing. Today I took this little stone, so opaque, so dead in its way, and put it in a crystal bowl. Like the "bottle" in which the Psalmist says God collects our tears, the bowl is cupping the stone.

For some, Lent is a giving up. For me, it is going to be a giving over... of sorrows, confusions, doubts, disappointments. To the degree that I can, I will put them in the crystal bowl. A kind of Lenten prayer.