enCouragingBliss: Again, and Again, and Again, and...

St. Peter's Cathedral,
Downtown Erie

Listening to: Today, no music. What are you hearing from outside? I am listening to the sweet sounds of a Cardinal SINGING. A true sign of spring.

Bliss: Last night, our writing group was extra exuberant, even in the face of some recent difficulties in some of our lives. Just crazy with stories and joking and so much laughter. Like a big family dinner. Beautiful.

Yesterday morning, way before a 9:30 meeting for coffee with a former writing student, I made my way through some very bitter air to the cathedral pictured above. I get there early so I have quiet time and so I get the seat I like -- opposite a window depicting "Wisdom."

Once inside and warmed and finished with some reflection and meditation, I looked around and noticed that the rising sun coming through the side stained glass windows was creating confetti on the walls and pillars. Dust motes were lit high in the arched ceiling, a sprinkling of magic above our heads.

Though the priest was old and a bit mumble-y in that large and echoing space, the words I caught meant more to me this year than they ever have, as my mind is open to their graceful meaning rather than occupied looking for a crack in which I might insert an argument.

Lent and what it leads to also means more to me as I am recently more intimately acquainted with our Life's partner, Death.

The thing that struck me most yesterday was the Priest's repeating a few times that this is not a time of guilt and moroseness, no, this call to Lent is a jubilant invitation to change and growth.

We are not to "give something up" so that when we stumble, we can berate ourselves.

No, that kind of self-flagellation is no longer encouraged. We know better. Besides, often that kind of activity is merely another ego filler, another way to say "look at me."

Instead, we are to explore who we are, how we are living, how we might live better so that we might someday die well.

Dying well is dying without regret.

If we are alive in this moment, every moment presents us with the opportunity to turn it all around. Every moment is a moment imbued with the possibility of our best selves.

So this week in enCouraging your Bliss, I recommend being forgiving. I recommend allowing for tripping and stumbling. I recommend that when you trip and stumble that you then laugh at yourself in a good natured way and get up and try again.

And then try again.

And then try yet again.

Because that is what this life is. This life is not reaching some pinnacle of perfection and then standing there looking all proud and smug. That is not how we humans are built.

We are frail and ridden with fault lines. We are meant to fail.

Because, like I said to Marcy the other day, "Wow. We learn so much more when we f--k up."