This season of lent, in tradition, is about penitence on a journey towards the cross. For me, the meaning of this sentence has shifted considerably – away from the idea of purging of impurity in order to be acceptable to a judgemental god, towards alignment with the deepest, truest, most authentic part of what I am, which is grounded and has substance in the glorious divine. Penitence then becomes about noticing those things that obscure and stop me living towards that reality, both in myself and in recognising this in my human and non-human neighbours. This kind of penitence does nor demand purity or perfection, rather it seems to thrive most beautifully in brokenness – in the mess of shared humanity, not removed from it.
One of the practices that helps many of us to engage with this reality is simply to go into wild places. There it feels possible to be alligned – to notice new connections – to that God who loves things by becoming them. This Sunday morning, I did just that. It was communion. Here is a short video and a poem from my trip.
The feathered Eucharist
Happy are those birds above who
never go to mass – those
Happy fragile feathered things with
light not stained by glass.
Blessed are they beak and claw, their air
is ever sacred.
Blessed be their treetop temple, each twig
a flying arch
and sacred is each song that choirs
from sparrows and from larks.
Happy are the crows and cranes
Whose Eucharist is endless.
And may the vaulted holy sky
be full of wings as birds fly by
on their way to ruffled worship.
(With thanks to Juan Raman Jimenez, ‘The Silversmith and I’.)
