A painful experience many of us have is facing and accepting emptiness in our lives.
I have been reflecting on this in recent days. Several incidents have led me here. Watching fellow Jesuits grapple with deaths of loved ones and Jesuit brothers. Accompanying a good friend in her struggles to come to terms with a friendship she hopes for but will never be. And, as I leafed through memories, recalling places lived and faces known that I have departed from in my life’s journey.
When emptiness stares us in the face, we often look for other distractions to fill it up with. Sometimes, we deny it is part of our living and we banish it away to the darkest corner of our forgetfulness. Truth be told, we would rather keep running away from it.
Yet, Lent asks us to enter emptiness. Accidents, events nor others create this. Rather, it is God. If we listen carefully to our Lenten readings, we will hear God calling us to rend open our hearts and to enter them. If we do so, we might find an emptiness. An emptiness of a hurt not forgiven. Of a falsity that is not our true selves. Of promising beginnings squandered.
I think many of us hesitate to enter this space. I know I do, now and again. We recoil from entering it because we know that there we will have to acknowledge our regrets and faults, even confess parts of ourselves that are dark, sad and embarrassing. Some of us fear being swallowed up by the emptiness, while others experience it as an ache that cries out to be understood and comforted.
Lent presents you and me with time and reason to retreat into our hearts. There, we can prayerfully contemplate the emptiness within. As we reflect on our struggles with it, so often fixated on self--on how good or bad I am; on how much I am a success or a failure--we will surprisingly find ourselves having stepped into an opening, like a clearing in the woods. And then, we will perceive this truth: here, always with us, is God. God who comforts my Jesuit brothers in their loss with promised new life and communion for all. God who is guiding my friend through her pain to greater freedom. God who taught me that partings are not ends but necessary beginnings to grow up from. God who is ever faithful and never abandons.
Thus, Lenten prayer, like Lenten fasting and almsgiving, can remind us of our liberating dependence on God. As such, this emptiness cannot be a void. Rather, it is the necessary space for grace. In this grace-filled place, we come to see who God is and who we truly are. This entitles us to reclaim, once again, our rightful inheritance, communion with God. Lent invites us into the desert of our hearts not to experience barrenness but to savor God faithfully reclaiming us into loving intimacy.
Perhaps, this is why running away from emptiness is not as life-giving as embracing it. Honestly, this is never easy to do, but taking first steps this Lent can lead us there.
photo: tree at the trappist monastery, spencer, massachusetts by adsj
Add a comment