Mustard Seeds and Lent

I’m well overdue for another blog entry-- but where to begin? First, Redecorating Month seems to be forging ahead. The kitchen is minus its ivy vine wallpaper and is painted a cheerful Amber color. I think it looks about like the walls at Olive Garden—exactly what I had in mind.
I’m trying to figure how redecorating fits into Lent, which is an important time of spiritual searching and growth for me. Redecorating seems so temporal and un-spiritual. But, something inside me urges this stripping off the old and bringing on the new. I look at my walls with those choices from over ten years ago and I see someone different. A woman who was fussy and a bit over-extended, perhaps a bit unsure of herself, too. The color of the rooms—a murky sea green just doesn’t express the person I am or the way I want to exist in this house. Is that spiritual in any way at all? Maybe not. But it is surely spiritual to “take off the old and put on the new.” To thine own self be true. I’m not murky green anymore.
After a few days of dirt, scraping and scrubbing, then finally applying the new coat of paint I began to feel disconnected from my writing life and somewhat distanced from the old writing projects too. My office is a mass of papers and random books. The second novel is sitting there waiting for another 6 chapters—still unwritten. But I’ve written three new poems. I love the very newest one. But then, I often have a brief intense love affair with my newest work of any sort (even redecorating!)
All month, I felt some inner stirring I couldn’t put my fingers on. It was troubling. I whined (again!) to my spiritual director when I saw her. Apologized that I was again into another whole list of new things—teaching Jr. Hi Sunday school about spiritual disciplines and home school kids about poetry. I’m preparing for a three-hour presentation about Mennonites to a group of mental health workers and getting ready to head out for a big poetry reading at Goshen next Sunday. I’ve been going to the mailbox hoping for some small shred of affirmation for my novel but haven’t see so much as one review yet. It’s disturbing! My confidante read me a poem by Hafiz that ended with a line about scattering emeralds, as if that would actually help me! But, in a day or so, it did.
Last Thursday and Friday I took off for a Women In Ministry conference at Bluffton University. (Thank goodness the kitchen was back in order!) I went to see daughter, Laura, but found out at the last minute I’d only be able to attend the keynote addresses, since registration had closed on March 1. This caused me to stay overnight Thursday and come home Friday afternoon. It was good to see her. She stayed in my motel with me.
While I was there I participated in a guided meditation over a mustard seed. I came home and immediately discovered a request for a “poet” to work on a project for Tom Sine, author of the 1981 Mustard Seed Conspiracy book. It was in an online newsletter I get. The “coincidence” was too close for comfort so I responded.
Today, the wall paper had to remain on the walls. I spent the entire day writing a parable-type piece in response to Tom Sine’s request. I have no idea whatsoever where this is leading! It is all part of another mysterious Lenten journey and has the potential to send me off in a different direction once more—or perhaps only build on the things that have gone before—the sustainable farming conference and the other odd interests that crop up and make me feel crazy (sorry to use the pejorative term, folks) but no other word completely will do. Maybe my brain chemistry IS mis-firing.
I went ahead and planted that mustard seed. It was in the bottom of my purse after I took everything out to look for it. I soaked it in a spoonful of water overnight and put it in a peat cup with the little eggplants and peppers. Is it true what Jesus said about it? That it will turn into a large tree with birds in the branches. I hope that doesn’t happen before I get the dining room re-decorated. The birds would be a problem, I think. Lofty Thoughts