Burned Out – 14″ x 18″ – newspaper, paint, caulk, papier mache’, knitted audio tape. Lent 2012.
We are now midway through the season of Lent, which is the 6 1/2 weeks leading up to Easter. Among other things, Lent is a time of year when we can look at the darker side of our experience; the suffering, the loss, the mistakes. Rather than condemning us as somehow wrong or shameful, and rather than pretending that these parts of life don’t exist, Lent acknowledges them, and hopes to find some meaning in them.
Scripture refers to these things as being like the refiner’s fire, by which silver is purified. And we understand that if we allow it, God can use situations of suffering or loss or error to purify our hearts. The same effect can often come from choosing austerities, hence the tradition of giving something up for Lent (a sort of voluntary suffering.) Whether they happen to us by circumstance, or we choose them consciously, these are situations in which we have to let go, whether of habits, security, possessions, health, relationships, our ideas about our future, or our self-image. And this process of letting go can serve to help burn away the
false ego that gets in the way of living into our true identity as children of God.
When we find ourselves in a difficult time, one thing we can do is ask, “What am I being called to let go of?” We may or may not be able to see from within the situation how it will lead to our purification; my experience has been that in most cases I don’t discover that until later. But if I know to look out for how the fire might be burning away impurities in me, I am likely not to struggle as hard.
The other effect that the self-examination of Lent can have is that when we discover our own impurities, acknowledge our own mistakes and failings, recognize our own suffering, we become more compassionate with the people around us, and that in and of itself acts as a cleansing of our hearts.