To you, O Love, I lift up my soul! O Heart within my heart, In You I place my trust.
Psalm 25: 1
"Rend your heart" is not a word we commonly use or desire. On Ash Wednesday, the prophet Joel called the people to "rend your hearts, not your garments". In Biblical times, the custom for mourning required weeping and tearing one's clothes as well as putting ashes or dust on the head. Joel called the people to something deeper than just an outward act of sorrow. He asked them to allow their brokenness and sorrow to touch their inner sanctuaries. Christine Valter Painter explains that tears are "...like a great cleansing river running through the heart of the desert, releasing our sorrow and grief, so that we might return to God... They continue to flow until we drop our masks and self-deception and return to the source of our lives and longing. They are a sign that we have crossed a threshold into a profound sense of humility." It requires surrender and trust in God's unconditional love. Today's Psalmist's prayer is one of complete trust, "I lift up my soul! In you I place my trust".
The metaphor of composting came to my mind when reflecting on this "letting go" process. I put my fruit and vegetable scraps, yard scraps, and coffee grounds in my composter. Slowly the scraps decompose and are transformed into compost rich in nutrients. In the spring, the compost replenishes the soil in my garden, As with the composting process, all we need for life is right here. Nothing is wasted. All of life is transformable. It requires readiness, trusting, and waiting for new life to emerge.
Macrina Wiederkehr writes, "I am ready to have the chains that keep me bound be broken. I am entirely ready for the walls I've built around myself be torn down. I am entirely ready to give up my need to control every situation. I am entirely ready to grow up. I ask myself, am I ready to receive the blessing of wandering through the next forty-days. Can I trust the One who is waiting to make me whole?"
Let this be a blessing and prayer for the next forty days of Lent.
Rend Your Heart
To receive this blessing,
all you have to do
is let your heart break.
Let it crack open.
Let it fall apart
so you can see
its secret chambers,
and hidden spaces
where you have hesitated
to go.
Your entire life
is here, inscribed whole
upon your heart's walls:
every path taken
or left behind,
every face you turned toward
or turned away,
every word spoken in love
or in rage,
every line of your life
you would prefer to leave
in shadow,
every story that shimmers
with treasures known
and those who have yet
to find.
It could take you days
to wander these rooms.
Forty, at least.
And so let this be
a season for wandering,
for trusting the breaking,
for tracing the rupture
that will return you
to the One who waits,
who watches,
who works within
the rending
to make your heart
whole.
~Jan Richardson
Song: Nada Te Turbe, Taizé (Do Not Fear)
Reflection:
As you search your own heart, what scraps need to be let go? What can you put in the compost pile to be transformed?
Let yourself wander through the rooms of your heart this season. What longings do you notice? What blocks you from returning to the One who loves you unconditionally and wants to make you whole?
Resources:
Paintner, C.V. (2012). Desert Fathers and Mothers: Early Christian Wisdom
Sayings Annotated and Explained. Skylight Paths Publishing
Richardson, J. (2015). Circle of Grace. Orlando, FL: Wanton Gospeller Press.
Wiederkehr, M. (1995). Song of the Seed: A Monastic Way of Tending the
Soul. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.
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