Saturday before the Third Sunday in Lent

Lenten Quiet Day at St. James Episcopal Church in Monkton, hosted by the Center for Spiritual Development. Taize chanting, prayer, and a reading, followed by more chanting and a period of silent meditation. Then a labyrinth walk and the stations of the cross.

The 14 stations are posted along a winding track that encircles a playground, tennis courts, a soccer pitch. All the ingredients are present: air crisp and gray, drumming of woodpeckers, harsh shouts of crows and jays, bluebird's flash of azure. Dozens of swifts flit and swoop over the field. One lights on the eighth station, where Jesus meets the daughters of Jerusalem. We stare at each other for a long moment, the bird and I, while my fellow retreatants press on, crest a small ridge, and pass out of sight. Even the buzzards participate in the commemoration. They wheel languidly overhead, marking the charnel spot, the potter's field. Golgotha. Rajagriha. Memento mori. The gravel crunches under my shoes like bones.

Yes, ev'ry secret of my heart
Shall shortly be made known;
And I receive my just dessert
For all that I have done.
We are passing away, we are passing away, we are passing away...

Prayer does not make me a good person. But neither do I have to be a good person in order to pray. All these years of facing the wall, and still I get lost and have to return to the beginning. This is not a spiritual insight; it is stark reality. I fail again and again at those activities which should come naturally: breathing, seeing, letting go. We practice not because it is a virtuous thing, but because it is a necessary thing. If we got it right, we would not need to practice.

Back at the labyrinth, an unexpected conversation with the parish priest. We talk about art, about money, about community. I tell him he is a fortunate man, that his parishioners are fortunate.

So am I.