The first full week of Lent is drawing to a close.  I have been “Cultivating Sacred Space” along with my faith community, and I have been writing on the theme of Holy Ground to correspond with the theme.  The past week has also been Spring Break (or as I like to call it, “The week my students don’t have classes.”)  It did give me a break from my usual routine, that I will admit.  I worked at home more frequently, I didn’t have meetings or prep work to do, and I had the flexibility during the day to attend to some important work with my church that needed to get done as well.  All throughout the week, I had carved out and protected Friday as a day to write.

By Thursday, there were so many demands looming on my Friday that I thought I would have to call the whole writing thing off.  I went to choir practice nevertheless.  I got home from choir in a completely different frame of mind, and I wrote an entry on my blog as has become my Lenten practice.  I found some mental stamina returning, and I burned the midnight oil, accomplishing what I needed to do so that I could still keep my own “writing retreat” Friday.  As my head hit the pillow Thursday night for what I knew would only be a few hours of rest, I realized the irony of the week’s theme and my stubborn insistence on carving out a writing day.  Writing is my Holy Ground.

I spent the entire day yesterday writing.  I started with my book project, which is going to be with me for quite some time.  I think of myself as “in training” for that writing marathon  which I hope to engage in this summer.  I push ahead in my organizational structure a little further each time I work on it, but stop when I hit a wall.  I take that as “enough for now” and I pull back a little.  I am being good to myself, because this is the first project of its magnitude in my life.  I recognize that the journey of writing is just as important as the destination.

After a break for lunch, I took up some not-for-public-consumption writing about my spiritual journey.  I write about the journey a lot, even on this blog, but there are some pieces that I am still working through and the words that come through me are both healing, and at times prophetic.  Having the solitary time to reflect, write, reflect more, write more was liberating and fed my soul.  Writing in that context is both therapeutic and growth-oriented.  I wrote more than I thought I would yesterday.  I kept my driven-to-outcomes nature at bay (mostly) reminding myself that the process has its own rewards.  I slept last night, and the images in my dreams told me some very important things about how far I had come, and where my steps are leading.  It was the time I needed, and those words were what needed to emerge.

As I close this week, I know this last reflection also needed to find a voice.

Writing is my Holy Ground.