Shadowed Selves
The season of Lent is upon us. Lent is a liturgical season in the Christian year that prepares people for Easter. It begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Easter Eve or what some refer to as Holy Saturday. This is the season when we reflect and work on returning to God, not to seek help necessarily but rather to return to God humbly, with honesty and most importantly with intention. I have always found Lent to be a powerful time as I examine my faith and take stock in how I’m living my faith in the world. We are in Year A of the 3 year lectionary that provides spiritual leaders and communities of faith with predetermined scripture passages for each Sunday. The stories through Lent this year are very powerful because they are all stories of people who meet Jesus and receive something that they needed which led to a transformative moment. These sacred encounters help us to learn about Jesus and ultimately learn about ourselves. Lent always begins with the story of Jesus going to the wilderness for 40 days and nights where Jesus encounters the Devil and is tested.
Some of you may wonder, why? Why did Jesus spend that much time in the wilderness and why did God allow Jesus to be tempted by the Devil? Have you ever spent significant time away from people and distractions? When a person goes on a journey to the wilderness, or goes on a pilgrimage what transpires is that one’s daily distractions begin to fall away. When I went to Botswana on a Safari several years ago, I remember the transition from being attached to my phone to being freed from it. At times I found myself touching my leg expecting to feel the vibration of a text message or email, but none came as I did not have cell phone coverage. When the distractions fall away something else often surfaces. While fasting in the wilderness, what surfaced for Jesus was temptation, hunger, and identity questions. Lent is inviting us, or more accurately challenging us to slow down, rid ourselves of distractions and become aware of our own personal blind spots or shadowed selves. Examples of blind spots that may appear are: impatience, control, pride, fear, avoidance, the need to be right, the need to be needed, just to name a few. The wilderness does not create these blind spots, but in fact reveals them.
Psychologically speaking the shadow is the part of ourselves that we repress, deny, or project onto others. See if any of these statements speak to you: over-functioning to avoid vulnerability; judging in others what we can’t accept in ourselves; calling fear “wisdom”; calling resentment “justice”. What parts of yourself do you NOT want to see? The season of Lent exposes these if we allow ourselves to engage spiritual practices. In this season our blind spots can gently be exposed. This may cause fear and anxiety to rise within you. What I want you to remember and hold onto in this season as you allow yourself to become vulnerable is that God sees your blind spots and your shadowed self AND most importantly - God still loves you! I hope that as we hear the stories of people encountering Jesus that they will inspire you to fully encounter Jesus and the Spirit too! May our shadowed selves turn to light and may we be healed and transformed on this journey in Lent.
Blessings, Rev. Karen