Thursday, February 14, 2008

Celebration is a Matter of Perspective

We have lost our way when it comes to celebrating. As a culture we know how to celebrate grand things like winning a super bowl or an academy award or presidential election. We celebrate hallmark events like New Year's Eve or Christmas or Valentine's Day, as though sending cards will somehow make it into the true event we want it to be. We even celebrate good fortune, a new job, a baby, a marriage, but how do we celebrate in the midst of the everyday life of headaches and tedium and broken toys and hurt feelings?

I think about this because I ran across a blog for the spiritual community Aldea, which seeks to live together intentionally, live fully, and be present to life, and as only one of its efforts, to gather on Sunday mornings. I am humbled by how the idea cuts through so much of the b.s. that we call church. This month, the community's blogging topic is "Celebration" and especially on celebrating in the midst of Lent and giving up suffering as a Lenten discipline.

As I pondered invading their blog as a relative stranger (sounds like an oxymoron to me), my first thought of a celebration I enjoyed was as a kid during a blizzard in Colorado Springs. The power was down for a few days, and so the whole neighborhood, 11 townhouses lined up out in the middle of a prairie northwest of the city, had a big cookout one evening. Looking back, it seems almost apocalyptic as thought we were huddled together for survival. Perhaps it was not that severe. But we had to eat some of the meat in people's freezers that was beginning to thaw, so everyone pooled their resources and offered it up to the community.

Did the adults think of it as a celebration? I wonder. Or were they so caught up in the worry of when the power would come back on and when the roads would be cleared so they could get back to their routines and the OTHER worries they had? Did they see the mystery of a community stopped cold in its tracks and taking the opportunity to be a slice of the kingdom of heaven as I see so clearly looking back through 10-year-old eyes?

I am struck once again by how much a role our minds, our perceptions play a role in what we see. This Lent, may I shed some of the adult worry seasoned by responsibility and fear and being caught off guard too times in favor of the simple joy and ability to be spontaneous of a 10-year-old.