One of my favorite descriptions of Lent was from a pastor. She said, shrewdly, “Lent is about the mess.”

I think this statement covers it all: the messes we have made in our relationships, our lives… the messes within us—the feelings, hurts, resentments, stuck places. In asking us to look at our “mess” and to bring it before God, Lent asks us to embrace our full humanity, not to make us wrong, but make us seen—not hidden—in our own eyes and in God’s.

It can be quite an inventory! But the purpose of this honest examination is repentance, which literally means “to turn around.” To pivot. To make a new step.

In the Gospel of John’s account of Jesus feeding the 5,000, it talks about how after the little bits of fish and bread have somehow fed so many, even to the point where everyone assembled could “eat their fill,” Jesus instructs the disciples to “Gather up the fragments left over, that nothing may be lost.”

Fragments left over? That is abundance upon abundance; how could anything be left over? But the message is clear: that “nothing may be lost.”

And so it is with us: The Kingdom of God needs all of us, and all our parts, our fragments. These words shimmer with mystery and provocation and promise: that all the fragments count, are needed. That it is not up to us to decide which parts of ourselves to discard, or disown—God will use them all. That feeding—ourselves, others—is something that happens in very unpredictable ways.

I recently read a quote from a pivotal book that found me 18 years ago: “Simply Sane: The Spirituality of Mental Health” by Gerald May, psychiatrist and author of many classic books on spirituality, and one of the founders of the renowned Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation in the D.C. area.

The reason I have the book to this day is because I “borrowed” it from the convent where I found it and it utterly steadied me during a tumultuous time. Yes, I purloined it. I was that desperate then, and the book is that good.

In any event, I recently legitimately bought a compilation of Jerry May’s posthumous columns from the Shalem newsletter.

Our Christian tradition has much to say about new life… new life in Christ, the resurrection life we celebrate in Easter; the coming of new life we wait for in Advent. As Isaiah reminds: “Behold, I am doing a new thing; do you not perceive it?”

I get excited about these new life concepts. In actual practice, well, not so much. Like many folks, the new can cause anxiety in me. So for any of you facing the new in any of the startling ways it can come, here is something that really helped me.

It’s an observation by one of my favorite writers, James Hollis, in his brilliant book, “Swamplands of the Soul.” He talks about whenever we are faced with some invitation to new life, we have two possible responses—anxiety or depression. I remember reading this and thinking, “Hey…what about option #3? This is it??”

There is a rowing machine at our local YMCA in Virginia that I try to make the acquaintance of when I am here. You fiddle with buttons for different rowing programs, and I like the one called “Just Row.”

You can look at the button name as you row, and the other day I was struck by how hard it was to do literally that: “Just Row.” Not so much physically, but mentally. My mind, and heart, and who knows what else were all over the map. I was not focusing on what I was doing, I was not present, I was not particularly grateful for the privilege of just rowing. I was elsewhere.

I try to take that little button with me, as a mantra. Just walk. Just pray. Just truly BE with the person you are with. Just breathe. To just work… especially if you have been without work. All grace.

I am often reminded, especially in the season of Epiphany, of the incremental nature of new life. As I wrote last week, Epiphany means “manifestation,” and our spiritual task can be to behold that which is new, shining and manifest in our lives, and to incorporate it in this new year. Fits right in with New Year’s resolutions.

Or not. I can talk a good game about the myriad invitations of change, and did so in the 1/3 Marble adult education class, but when it comes to physically making a change, theory meets practice, and I’m often amazed by how hard it is to ingrain anything new.

Eating less. Exercising more. Classic examples. More subtle ones: Praying more. A change of heart. A gathering of courage. Starting a difficult conversation. Every time I have tried to write ’10 on something—a check, notes from a meeting—it has come out ’09. I spent ten years learning to write 0-whatever. That habit does not go easily into the night.

We are now in the church season of Epiphany, six weeks long, and often overlooked, though as a noun “epiphany” has an enduring place in our language, promising a sudden flash of insight.

Centering on the light of the star that guided the three magi to Bethlehem to see the Christ child, the biblical word Epiphany means “manifestation.” Something shows itself… it appears and as always the question is, do we behold it?

I had one such moment of potent manifestation this Christmas. I was at my parents’ home in Connecticut. I live in Virginia and work at Marble; one sister is in Kentucky, another in upstate NY. Dear friends also gathered that night were from NYC. My mother looked around and said, happily but longingly, “I wish you lived closer.”

The day after Christmas. Perhaps some space, some breathing room. As the church calendar reminds, Christmas is more than a day; it’s a season, a time between now and Epiphany, as well as an eternal time of new birth, new beginnings.

I heard one Christmas cry of the soul I want to pass on. This was a few days before the 25th, and a dear friend hollered: "I can’t do ANY MORE transactions!" She did not mean she could no longer shop for anything; she meant she needed quiet time, solitude, a pause in the transactions of gatherings, conversations, bustling…of other people. She needed to be alone.

One day this past week I took a short late afternoon walk in Madison Square park, just south of Marble Church. In one of the lawn areas, there is a public sculpture display. The artwork, entitled "Markers," are four large black-and-white shapes with holes cut out in various places.

Nearby the sculptures this sign is posted: "We encourage you to interact with the artwork, but for your safety please DO NOT CLIMB the sculpture."

As someone who sees metaphors wherever there is prose, probably including candy wrappers, I was charmed -- and stopped -- by these unexpected words.