March 04, 2007

Lenten Projects

I feel like everything this week was felt in the extreme, from overwhelming love to confusion and anxiousness. Days of singing and joy and those where I had to consciously center and breathe.

Last Tuesday I went to the Butterfly House (cocoons and butterflies have been metaphors for much of my journey this year). What an incredible place! The same blue butterfly was on my back from the moment I walked in until I had to coax it off when I went to leave an hour later. People kept asking if I knew I had a butterfly on my back, or did I want them to take a picture. I did have one woman snap a shot. So much beauty there!


Last night we had one of the communities in the house over for supper and prayer (an on-going Christmas present). A delightful sharing with some of our sisters in a little different way.

Today we had Taize prayer in the chapel and a wonderful Sharing of the Heart. I went down and had a little fun playing on the piano just before now and soon I'll be off to read and pray and sleep.
As I mention all of these things, I am mindful of how I spend those antsy moments (or days...or weeks...). Any other year I would fill them with "doing"--put something else on my calendar. This being the novitiate, however, with its thrust on "being," I have tried to stay away from some of that. I realize, though, that the doing energy often just takes a different shape. Lately it has been arts and crafts projects: I've got my quilt-top pieced, a new painting in the dining room, my paper mache cocoon painted, the plans for my tissue paper butterfly all laid out (heck, even adding entries to the blog can be a distraction). Not an all together bad way to use the energy. Much of it is very good. It is just good for me to know these bits about myself, I suppose.

I was sharing about some of my antsy energy with a friend, telling him that I am trying not to escape them all the time. He said that it is unnecessary for me to put myself in the desert, God will put me there often enough. I think maybe the novitiate is the desert, a place to go away and be quiet and be with God. God has me there. The question for myself is, can I let myself be in that quiet place?
--Sarah

4 comments:

  1. Sarah,
    Just being is a very hard thing to do....and not a waste of time.
    but it sounds like in the attempt to BE you got a lot accomplished.

    Looking forward to being with you at sectional in Atlanta this coming weekend see you Saturday....
    Nancy In Atlanta

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  2. Yeah Atlanta!
    P.S. Who checks the blog at 5:55 in the morning?!

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  3. Amazing how many talents you can discover when you give it a bit of time and energy, eh? I think that is a good lesson to interiorize as challenges face you in the years to come.... You have within you what it takes. I'll have to share one of my favorite books for Lent: "Hope for the Flowers."
    --Pat M

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  4. i am guessing that's the butterfly you talked about in our phone convo?.. awesome pics sis.

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