Resurrection is not a shortcut around grief

 Resurrection is not a shortcut around grief. Teri McDowell Ott

And there is was: a relatively brief sentence which exploded my Lenten moroseness. For one of my many growing edges is that I too often look for shortcuts, the easiest most expeditious way out. I am learning to pause and reflect on this long cultivated reaction; I am learning that sometimes the long way is the greatest teacher, of dear value. When I have paused and thought twice about the easy way and reconsidered the road not taken, I have learned valuable lessons albeit difficult ones. Like Jacob I have accepted wounds from the wrestling while being blessed by an angel in adversarial disguise. 

Lent offers an entire season of reconsideration of shortcuts, easy answers, and non stop flights. Lent invites us to linger, to ponder choices, to engage in discernment which is different from mere decision making. Discernment, like Lent, is a prayerful process, not a moment of action, though action may result in due time. 

One of the opportunities in the wilderness is to stay awhile with grief and loss. At that opportunity crossing we might not traverse by saying “I’m fine”. We might need to embrace and grapple with “I am not fine” realizing that such an awareness is not a dead stop but a reset. 

The work of Lent is not about easy proclamations which we say are hard. The work of Lent is about deep deep silence from which no words may even emerge. I believe we are simply meant to live Lent, live into the wilderness of grief and uncertainty. Really live it, deeply, truly.

I have also come to understand that this deep living experience is about accessing our true selves, warts and all, by remembering and retelling our stories. These stories are not just of past Lents and what worked or didn’t work, what felt good, what self-improvements we made. These stories if genuine and thorough, carry us not down rabbit holes but down wells of living water. From those we might drink and quench.

All this leads me back to the quote and resurrection. The hope of resurrection is what beckons us in the wilderness and fosters our persistence. The hope of resurrection is long and complex, as well as beautiful and multivarious. We might miss holding our piece of this hope tapestry or shelter or sustenance when we look for a shortcut instead. 

There is glorious arduous work to be done.