This Little Clod of Dirt

“If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”
—Luke 9:23

“Though more people than we realize carry real crosses of poverty or illness, the crosses most of us must carry are the seemingly trivial little crosses of accepting ourselves and those around us as the flawed creatures that we are. Carl Jung spoke of the humbling process of ‘climbing down a thousand ladders’ until he could reach his hand to the ‘little clod of earth’ that he was.”
—Aileen O’Donoghue

Yesterday began the season of Ashes, the Lenten journey to Easter. There’s a kind of depth to Lent that makes it my favorite liturgical season. I felt relief yesterday to be marked with ashes and reminded that I am dust and to dust I shall return. This is the season of getting down those ladders to the little clod of earth that I am, as Jung says.

And what do we find there in that little clod? Is it only dirt? This is the risk of Lent. This is why these forty days are more than an extended exercise in morbidity and remembrance of our impermanence, and is rather an adventure of self-discovery. The process of rediscovering ourselves is liberating because we can let go of all the things we mistakenly thought we were, and get down to the essence of what we really are: dirt, the fabric of the universe, the substance of the stars, the same stuff that is redeemed and made whole on Easter.

Lent and Easter are one thing, just as we are one thing: flawed, broken, simple, dirt that is nevertheless the living body of the Divine.

Now is the Time

"Behold, now is a very acceptable time; now is the day of salvation."
--2 Corinthians 6:2b

"People often say to me: 'Pray for me.' Then I think: Why are you coming out? Why do you not stay in yourself and hold on to your own good? After all, you are carrying all truth in you in an essential manner. That we may so truly remain within, that we may possess all thruth, without medium and without distinction, in true blessedness, may God help us to do this. Amen."
--Everything as Divine: The Wisdom of Meister Eckhart, Sermon 5B

I don't believe Eckhart is telling us not to pray for others, or to ask for others' prayers. I think he is suggesting that we often miss our own essential blessedness, we mistakenly assume that wisdom will come from outside of us, when in fact, pure awakening is our natural state, and an awakened mind--and a redeemed mind--is our birthright.