Lent - Day 8

One week of this deep 40 Day season and where am I?

As I sit at my computer, I am looking out at the giant oak tree in my back yard as the sun filters in through clouds and leaves and a lovely sun shower (something that I always remember fondly from childhood, but which rarely happens in Northern California) pelts down on the gables just beyond my window.

On the one hand, I am on the verge of economic panic as I struggle to find a way to pay my rent. On the other hand, I feel an incredible sense of peace.

For much of the last week I have been anything but calm. I have, like much of the culture, been captured during the last week in a frenzy of Twitter and that has done what so much of that type of thing does. It has left me feeling strangely detached and disjointed; much of the time I experience myself in a sort of disembodied cyber-tunnel.

I wonder what it would be like to truly remove myself from technology for a period of 40 days (or even a period of 3 days!). Many of these 40 Days posts have talked about my attempts (more or less successful) to remove myself from technology for ONE day and the fact is such experiences really do seem to help me reconnect to the earth and spirit at the center of my being. I can't help but imagine that a greater separation of the silicon based universe would lead to a greater connection to the carbon based universe. Moving away from the virtual world almost always reconnects me to the real world.

But then, even addressing things in this way raises (or more precisely re-raises) the basic existential questions at the core of everything we are. What is real? How can you tell? What will you do about it?

To me, this is the jewel at the heart of Lenten practice. It is a time for taking a look into the cave of existence to see what might be hiding in the shadows of your life, coaxing it out of it's hiding place and asking it to tell you something you don't already know (or that you have forgotten). It is my deepest belief that this is the heart of existence; this is what brings meaning to my life. It's not the rules I follow, the things I give up, the plans for new work and new goals and new things. It's finding the center and hanging out there for a while.

Then again... I still have to pay my rent.