Through the fire.

A blessing for your Lenten journey

Ceramic plates waiting to be burned in the wood fire stove at the pottery at St Johns monastery. (c) A. Furchert.

Dear fellow pilgrim,

Lenten has become the season of giving up things. Coffee. Cookies. Often something we usually should not have in the first place. I am not a friend of Lenten-givings-up for the sake of giving up.

But I understand where people are coming from. Originally these practices were meant as a practice of detachment. To let go of something which is important to us. To practice letting go instead of holding on.

And thus the practice of detachment can look different for different people just as we cherish different things.

You might feel your soul is stretched out, already thin, or in need of a truckload of ashes in order to lament the state of our world. You might have become as weary of Lenten-givings-up as you are of New Years resolutions. So have I. What could we even give up which would matter in the grand scheme of things, would matter to the child clinging to dear life in the ruins of Ukraine or Gaza?

And so I lament today…

Navalny.
Murdered hope.

Cowardly dictators.
cheered on by wanna be dictators.

Money makers.
who sell the truth for golden sneakers.

How long, oh Lord, how long shall this last?

Perhaps Lent is after all not so much about giving something up but more about deepening. About walking slowly and waiting patiently for Spring to finally come, about being present to the lengthening days even as the snow still flies, even when the present is full of mourning.

Waiting as pottery rests, to be burned in the oven, to be finished.

Lenten comes from the Germanic Old English “lencten” which means lengthen. Lengthen as in the days which lengthen towards Spring. Just as we walk through the lengthening days of winter’s ending there comes the time when birds start to sing. Spring is coming, dear traveler. With hope in its wings.

Do not despair, dear one. Hold on to hope. Be the hope.

A Blessing for your Lenten journey

The fire is not burning you

it only melts away what is not needed.

The weariness is not unending

it too will melt away,

in the potter’s fire.

Rest now in the storm.

Rest…

and dream of Spring.

And may hope abound within you, Almut

PS: If you can, leave a heart, a word or a line which resonated with you in the comments, so we know you have been here :-)

About Almut

Almut Furchert, Dr. phil., Dipl. Psych. is a German American scholar and practitioner, a psychologist turned philosopher turned writer, traveler, photographer, retreat leader and mother of a pre-schooler. She has taught and published on authors like Kierkegaard, Buber, Frankl, Yalom, Edith Stein, and Hildegard of Bingen. Almut is also a Benedictine Oblate and lives with her family in a little college town in MN.

Thank you for reading, sharing and supporting Cloister Notes, a letter for dancing monks, weary pilgrims and wounded healers in the intersection of psychology, philosophy and spirituality. If you have been moved by my writing please consider becoming a sustaining member to make this labor of love possible and keep it accessible to all. Thank you, thank you.

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