by Karl Digerness, Worship Arts Director

Eternal God,
give us insight
to discern your will for us,
to give up what harms us,
and to seek the perfection we are promised
in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

— Collect for the The Third Sunday in Lent,
Book of Common Prayer

Maybe you’ve had this same experience: you’re commuting home from work and as soon as you get home, you suddenly realize you can’t really remember the last 20 minutes of your life. A quick google search reveals it’s not so uncommon. “Highway hypnosis” (or as I’m hereby coining: “MUNI malaise”) is bound to happen at some point. In an intro to his “Overview of Dissociative Disorders,”  David Spiegel, MD has written that “Occasionally everyone has minor problems integrating their memories, perceptions, identity, and consciousness. For example, people may drive somewhere and then realize that they do not remember the drive. They may not remember it because they are absorbed—with personal concerns, a program on the radio, or a conversation with a passenger—or are just daydreaming. Such problems, referred to as normal dissociation, typically do not disrupt everyday activities.” That’s reassuring, doc.

I think we often feel the same sort of phenomenon spiritually. For me, the absorption, the auto-pilot, the malaise, the entropy—whatever you want to call it— is a constant force in my own spiritual life. The antidote is presence, and a renewed sense of empathy and connection. But for me, in order for that to happen I need to be interrupted. I need a break from the routine. A spiritual intervention of sorts. A caesura.

In music, a caesura denotes a brief, silent pause, during which metrical time is not counted. All sound comes to a complete stop and time is suspended. It creates a brief space for reflection and anticipation for what’s to follow. Lent is an inconvenient interruption. Sometimes it can feel forced or even uncomfortable, but it’s a necessary caesura and an incredibly wise piece of the church calendar. Thankfully, there are a few times during the year  (Advent, for one) that the liturgical calendar creates space to slow down and reflect. Advent and Lent carry some parallel themes and have a lot in common in their shared aspects of waiting and preparation (it’s one of the reasons they both have the same liturgical color: purple). But if Advent is about light breaking into the darkness, perhaps a way to understand Lent is a journey/descent into the dark.

I love the way the prayer at the beginning of this post sums up the Lenten journey.  That’s what I need Lent to be: an interior journey of discernment, stripping away, and “perfection” (read: completion, maturity, and wholeness). Lent is an invitation into the wilderness of solitude and reflection, where the distractions and noise can be stripped away.

It’s amazing what you’re able to notice in the wilderness. I think that’s the beauty of Lent. It nudges us into the wilderness, a yearly signpost toward the Way of the Cross. Not that the downward journey is some hidden or novel idea. Jesus’ not-so-subtle call to take up our cross and follow him is a pretty clear indication that things are going to get dark and suffering isn’t optional. It’s just that the path of suffering is one we rarely take willingly.

The counterintuitive and often painful lesson of Lent is beautifully described in Jon Foreman’s aptly titled song, Learning How to Die…

“All along I thought I was learning how to take,
how to bend not how to break,
how to live not how to cry.
But really I've been learning how to die.”

Perhaps Jon had been reading Richard Rohr, who says, “We all die eventually; we have no choice in the matter. But there are degrees of death before the final physical one. If we are honest, we acknowledge that we are dying throughout our life, and this is what we learn if we are attentive: grace is found at the depths and in the death of everything.” In a world preoccupied with learning how to win and succeed, Jesus wants to teach us a very different lesson. One that he knows from experience.

Of course, it’s far easier to attempt to write about these things, or craft pithy aphorisms, or post lofty quotes than it is to actually embody a cruciform life. I’m not sure it will ever get easier or that I’ll ever be less afraid. I like this encouragement from Richard Rohr:

“We must not be afraid of falling, failing, going ‘down.’ When you go into the full depths and death, sometimes even the depths of your sin, you come out the other side—and the word for that is resurrection.”

That’s the ultimate lesson of Lent, the one that culminates in Holy Week. If I can believe that Jesus has already been to the depths and broken through into new life, maybe I can believe that this is possible for me too. And not just in the end, but day by day, failure after failure.

“He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again.”

These words that we proclaim together each week hold out the hope for me that, after learning how to die: resurrection.

Listen to : Learning How to Die by Jon Foreman