A Table Approaching Lent: A Veil, A Desert, An Ocean

(this was written yesterday)

Its been a difficult time lately, have had a pretty horrible fever the past couple days and am one huge ache, i think it’s a flu or sinus infection (which i'm taking some natural remedies for), but im not sure yet, will have to see what happens over next couple days. Had my appointment up for the dental exam before the dental surgery but had to cancel it and the next opening isn’t for a month now (they book up fast, especially since they get behind during the frequent power outages out here and so appointments get backlogged). But there was just no way i could make it in, i'm in bed most of the time these past couple days, feel just horrible. Even getting this little post together had to happen in tiny spurts. Grrrrrr.

I almost wonder if what’s happening a cleansing though, because a lot of good things have happened the past couple weeks and an influx of light does affect that darkness within. I didn’t share much from before, didn’t feel it was time to, but i feel i can look back now and this past time has been just amazing. Who knew that just returning to reading Scripture more would open such a door. But it did. I remember one day during, seeking what this was all about i opened up to the verse at the end of the Song of Solomon about the leaping deer and got such a warm feeling. I discounted it because its such a commonly quoted verse, but then later that day i out of the blue saw deer in the yard---and one of them actually ran and leaped at one point! The thing is, i’ve never seen a deer leap in person, ever, so to see it then, after that verse, after the FEELING that verse had brought up, well it was such treasure. I know some may think it silly, but to me this is the precious stuff, the little co-in-see-dances. And this last month was full of such precious co-in-see-dance, and i have been so grateful.

But now...crash. Or cleanse. Or penance. Or i'm not sure what. Before the fever hit, for three days in a row an odd thing happened... as i would settle in to fall asleep these really gruesome images kept popping onto my head like a movie. Violent bloody stuff. I thought at first it was spiritual attack, but on second thought wonder if it was more stuff just coming up from inside to be released. After all we live in such a violent world, and some of that can sure get internalized. More and more i’m drawn to the area of the "custody of the senses", but we sure don’t always live that way and things need to get "washed" somehow. Anyway, after the three days of the weird images is when the fever and pain hit. Whatever it is, prayers would be mega cherished right now. And forgiveness as well, and even more so.... because i have needed an rather extreme amount of seclusion these past weeks. Not that i think seclusion is wrong, but i think one should still be (respectfully) accessible, kind of a fine line there. At any rate i have been just horrible at keeping in touch with folks (you know who you are dear ones). I am truly sorry. And yet honestly i am still in that kind of more "inaccessible" place right now. What i long for is more "sharing solitude" right now. I just love that phrase.

On Candlemas i ended up starting to explore veiling "for real", it just kind of happened, like a longing that couldn’t be buried anymore. The veil i feel needs to hold that balance too—that respect but also accessability, a ~respected~ accessability. And with this focus on the veil more and more lately, i was deeply moved when i came across this post at Tea at Trianon:


"Shrove Tuesday (today) is the feast of the Holy Face of Jesus. ...

Here is a formula from the ancient Ambrosian liturgy, as quoted by Abbot Gueranger in The Liturgical Year for Shrove Tuesday:

Sweet is this present life, but it passes away;
terrible, O Christ is thy judgment, and it endures forever.
Let us, therefore, cease to love what is unstable,
and fix our thought on what is eternal: saying:
Christ, have mercy upon us!

Now the time has come to go into the desert, the desert of Lent.

I love this, and its given a deeper layer to the whole veil thing as well...just imagine feeling His very Face around us, wow!