..mirrors

Sometimes in life I go throughout my day ignorantly sporting a disaster. Large chunks of spinach hanging out between my front teeth or (my classic) walking around campus with my backpack wide open, exposing my apathy towards my schoolwork to the whole world. I usually smirk and move on, thinking of everyone that I may have given an ego boost by my unintentional catastrophe of self.

I think that this analogy is very true about who I am as a person too. My common state of life is going through it, smiling, thinking that my way is working just fine and assuming that people are admiring me from a distance. The realistic truth about myself is that sometimes I step in dog shit or have 8 billion poppy seeds in my teeth, but am walking too fast past mirrors to realize it. I think that I have the ability to stop, take the time, and examine myself in my own mirror, but the truth is that I don't. I rarely pause and think about the condition of my life and how that is directly effecting others. I have a lot of criticism about how everyone else is doing, and when it comes to me, I speed past the mirror using the excuse of grace to ease my discomfort.

Regarding the last post (about Lent), I think that Lent is intentionally stopping at the mirrors and owning the shoe that reeks and the seeds ruining my smile. Lent sometimes isn't enough for me to pull over though.

Today a friend forced me to look in a mirror and I didn't really like what I saw. I saw arrogance (that I would like to falsely label as confidence but I know that is not entirely true) and callousness and a demeanor that was hurting others. I definitely didn't enjoy gazing into the dark spots of my soul, realizing that they were huge and radically dominate in the landscape. Everything inside of me wanted to excuse myself from the situation, renaming the condition or blaming it on PMS, but to do so would be to impede personal development and, more importantly, allow me to continue to hurt others.

So I think that I am still looking at myself in the mirror. And then I will go for a little ways down the road, and come to another mirror and pull over to gaze in bewilderment at the chaos of my life. The process of Lent brings me many mirrors without the protection of all-excusing grace or the smoke of distraction. I will own these reflections, with deflating humility and bring them with me to the dead end of the Lenten season.

I think the dead end of the road has mirror in it too. Instead of being in my bathroom or held by a friend, its replacing the face of Jesus. So my last mirror is on a cross, with a body that is in immense pain with the weight of my sin pressing all around. In that image of myself of the cross, there is hope for life beyond a mirror and beyond mere reflection on the decay of my life. The mirror of myself doesn't stay on the cross, it dies a very painful death, is buried and then rises in 3 days.

There is hope for me. That hope isn't found in the misapplied grace that I give myself or the speed at which I glaze over life, but in the death and resurrection of my Savior. So I can look in my mirrors and I can look in the faces of the people that I have hurt and remorse over the ugliness, but keep on moving towards the death and resurrection of myself. In and of myself, I will never choose the cross, that is a miracle that God brings me to desire, but within the promise of my own death and resurrection there is hope for something better.

I think that that's the only change I can believe in right now. :)

..lent

Rarely in my life do I feel as thought I am being prepared for an event on the religious calender. I think that I ebb and flow with the tide of advertising, reflecting on the coming season because it is coming and that is just what I do. I don't feel as though I am every spiritually ready to really experience the depth of Christmas or Easter and I think that this interaction has become the normal for me in my life. For some reason, Lent has been unexpected this year. For a while I have been strangely disillusioned with myself and my relationship with God. It has been filled with a sense of failure and sad shortcomings that have left me frustrated and confused. However, I went to the Lent service at school today and it all kind of seemed to make sense with the way that I have been experiencing my faith recently. A part of me thinks that I am applying spiritual meaning to nothing, to simply ease the condition of my heart. I don't think that I will assume this to be true though. Might as well assume it to be true, I have nothing to loose.

Lent is about becoming real. Stripping away false religious pretenses to experience God in a way that is intimate and raw.

I also feel academically isolated right now. P.S.