Lenten Lingering
Impatient Sunsets, Aching for the Garden, & Crosses of Love
I lingered in the church, unable to tear myself away from the beauty and peace that I found there. Mass had long ended, and most people had left, but not all. Some remained on, basking in the gentle stillness that comforts weary souls. A quiet hum of conversation could be heard from beyond the closed doors of the vestibule, but inside the church the hustle and bustle of the world seemed far removed.
Lingering does not come naturally to me. For much of my life I simply paused, did the bare minimum, and then quickly moved on to the next thing. The idea of waiting, lingering, and whiling away the moment almost frustrated me. I remember once watching a sunset in college and having an overwhelming feeling of impatience and restlessness. Though the moment was beautiful, something in me rebelled at the slow pace and the far distance I was from the sun. The immense beauty seemed so far, so incomprehensible, and so unattainable that I couldn't help but feel frustrated and disappointed. This frustration and disconnect between the sun, an object and myself, the subject, prevented me from enjoying a simple moment and basking in the final rays of sunshine which cascaded over the valley. The same held true for other beautiful moments. Sometimes at a concert, in prayer, in an art gallery, or even during a joyous gathering with friends I would feel a resurgence of that frustration.
Upon reflection, I think the feeling of impatience was the result of two things. It seems the first cause was a mix of both immaturity and unrealistic expectations. Those moments in childhood and college are classic examples of the side effects of a culture built on instant gratification. Learning to be moved by beauty is a slow process. It requires pausing, listening, and watching with the eye of your soul. But we don't want to slow down. We want to keep going, to move on, to crank up the volume, hit the accelerator, and rush onward and upward. We're told to “go for it,” to “just do it.” We're not told to wait for it, to let it come, to be patient. Especially as a young student, the act of lingering feels closer to procrastination than to productivity.
But secondly, and more significantly, it seems this frustration only scratches the surface of that deeper unfulfilled desire that we have on earth as we yearn for harmony with God. We were made for union with God. Our hearts yearn to walk with the Lord once again in the beauty of the Garden. But with the Fall, that harmony has been torn asunder, leaving a painful, aching void within us.
When we see a beautiful sunset or hear a beautiful song, it reminds us of the Creator. It lifts our hearts upward, pointing us to God. But sin has left us banished from the Garden, and the original harmony between God and man seems but a memory. Yet God is working within our lives, and the gates of Heaven have been opened. But we are impatient, and, like children, it is hard to understand that the immediate satisfaction of our worldly desires may not be the best thing for us. The impatience I felt in the face of a sunset whispers of something greater. It is the desire to come home to the Garden we were made for, where every tear will be dried.
And yet, the Lord asks us to trust him, even in our impatience. He has marvelous plans for us. Though we must make conscious decisions and choose to live virtuously, we must also learn to linger in his presence, slowly but surely, step by step.
As the years have passed, what once felt impossible has slowly begun to feel both possible and desirable. I find myself lingering not because I know that it's objectively good for me, but because it is something I want to do. And yet even with these first results, I know that I have so much more to learn. Happy are they who can truly say “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope.”
In the interim between one Mass ending and the next beginning, the church slowly begins to fill. An old couple steps up to the communion rail to kneel down and pray. As the woman kneels, the strap of her purse slips from her shoulder and falls. With a smile, the man turns, lifts up the strap, and places it once more upon her shoulder. It is but a simple, tiny gesture, and yet it means and says so much. This is true love: not merely to carry someone else's cross for them, but to help them replace it upon their shoulder when it falls. With a smile, the man assists his wife in carrying her cross, not with gleeful delight that she has dropped it, but with kind encouragement and love. He returns the purse strap to her shoulder gently and unassumingly, but it makes all the difference. Though we must each shoulder our particular crosses and struggles in life, they become less hard to carry when others are by our side to reposition them upon our shoulder with love.
At almost the same time I glance up to see a young couple slowly walking out of the church with their young child. As they gradually make their way down the nave from the altar to the doors, an image flashes before my eyes of the first time this couple made that same journey from the altar to the doors of the church as newlywed husband and wife. Now with their small child between them, they make that same path, that same simple Way of the Cross. This is a perfect reflection of the Lenten journey; this is what it means to slowly linger in the House of the Lord.
I can’t help but wonder if impatience or restlessness is sometimes the result of missing opportunities to expand whatever level of God-given energy we may have on doing the good things in front of us.