I Have Decided

The Rev. Nancy E. Gossling

I wrestled with making a decision about my Lenten discipline this year. I didn’t want to do the same old, same old. You know, give up certain things, make some material sacrifices: no more coffee, chocolate, wine, chips or FaceBook? Nope. So how about taking up some new habits? Some personal improvements? I’ll be less judgmental, critical, and negative in my thinking. I’ll assume an attitude of gratitude all day long; and I’ll be kinder and gentler with everyone, slower in the ways in which I live and move and have my being? Nope.

So what should I do? I decided to begin with a formal confession to my spiritual director, a priest in the Episcopal Church and a member of a monastic community. As a grateful member of Al-anon, and a believer in the universal applicability of 12 step spirituality, I took a fearless moral inventory (Step 4), and then admitted to God and to this other person the exact nature of my wrongs (Step 5). Garbage out. Check. Reconciliation of a penitent. Check. I created more space for good, maybe even God. Check.

Then I relentlessly asked myself two questions: What do I need to do or change during this COVID time, which has been a year-long season of Lent, with plenty of time for self-reflection? And what is my primary purpose for the next 40 days of this Lent? I discovered a “certain revelation.” I need to draw closer to God every day.

“Are you following me?” Mary Oliver asked. Yes! “I have decided to find myself a home in the mountains, somewhere high up where one learns to live peacefully in the cold and the silence.” Nope. It’s not a vacation. Nope, it’s not travel, other than me climbing that spiritual mountain every day. There I draw closer to God who has been patiently waiting for me to arrive. Check.

I HAVE DECIDED, by Mary Oliver

I have decided to find myself a home

in the mountains, somewhere high up

where one learns to live peacefully in

the cold and the silence. It’s said that

in such a place certain revelations may

be discovered. That what the spirit

reaches for may be eventually felt, if not

exactly understood. Slowly, no doubt. I’m

not talking about about a vacation.

Of course at the same time I mean to

stay exactly where I am.

Are you following me?