horror and freedom
(thursday reflections)
last night we went to a wednesday lenten service at church. it has been a pretty cool experience these past two weeks: soup dinner, small group of people, quiet, candlelit sanctuary, simple evening prayer. interestingly for me (as it has never happened before), last night as our priest came to the point in the Lord's supper where he holds the wafer up before the eyes of the congregation and says, "Christ our passover is sacrificed for us" (to which we respond, "therefore let us keep the feast"), my eyes welled up in tears. this has never happened to me before. but i just felt, well... free. Christ our passover is sacrificed. as if to say, sweetheart, it's okay. it's been done. you're free, now. keep the feast! and it certainly is not the case that i don't "already know" all this. it just hadn't hit me so emotionally before then.
when i was little, my mom was wont to speak of the problem of desensitization. the more you see something-- usually she was referring to sex or violence on tv or in movies-- the less it shocks you. the more you are exposed to it, the more you accept it as okay. and certainly, she is right. the process of enculturation is non-selective. we accumulate all of our knowledge of "normal" through basically one method: environmental observation. i always notice it most in myself when i see a new fashion or makeup trend. at first, it strikes me as weird and generally unattractive. but after a while i find myself liking it more and more. "it grows on me." indeed, exactly so. (alas, i am doomed to be a style follower, never a trend-setter.)
but today i am thinking that perhaps that desensitization process can be a mode of adaptation-- a healthy thing. when my heart experiences the pain and bondage of sin in the world in a new way, one i had not dealt with before, and i become trapped in that seizing but it isn't okay! feeling, i generally (unintentionally) wound myself more. i experience anxiety, a weighing down of my heart, and a sharp sensitivity to the world around me (like a temperature-sensitive exposed nerve that sends shooting pain at the least change in temperature). i get stuck, so to speak, in the "horror" of it.
and so, when and if i finally begin to feel the desensitization process kicking in, i think it is fair to be thankful. because while it is true that i may be more at risk of losing the seriousness i had about the reality of the world, i think that we cannot hope to live capably if we are always experiencing the full weight of the darkness. and the lighter load enables us to be joyful. and it enables us to be free. and after all, Christ our passover is sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the feast. for we are free.
last night we went to a wednesday lenten service at church. it has been a pretty cool experience these past two weeks: soup dinner, small group of people, quiet, candlelit sanctuary, simple evening prayer. interestingly for me (as it has never happened before), last night as our priest came to the point in the Lord's supper where he holds the wafer up before the eyes of the congregation and says, "Christ our passover is sacrificed for us" (to which we respond, "therefore let us keep the feast"), my eyes welled up in tears. this has never happened to me before. but i just felt, well... free. Christ our passover is sacrificed. as if to say, sweetheart, it's okay. it's been done. you're free, now. keep the feast! and it certainly is not the case that i don't "already know" all this. it just hadn't hit me so emotionally before then.
when i was little, my mom was wont to speak of the problem of desensitization. the more you see something-- usually she was referring to sex or violence on tv or in movies-- the less it shocks you. the more you are exposed to it, the more you accept it as okay. and certainly, she is right. the process of enculturation is non-selective. we accumulate all of our knowledge of "normal" through basically one method: environmental observation. i always notice it most in myself when i see a new fashion or makeup trend. at first, it strikes me as weird and generally unattractive. but after a while i find myself liking it more and more. "it grows on me." indeed, exactly so. (alas, i am doomed to be a style follower, never a trend-setter.)
but today i am thinking that perhaps that desensitization process can be a mode of adaptation-- a healthy thing. when my heart experiences the pain and bondage of sin in the world in a new way, one i had not dealt with before, and i become trapped in that seizing but it isn't okay! feeling, i generally (unintentionally) wound myself more. i experience anxiety, a weighing down of my heart, and a sharp sensitivity to the world around me (like a temperature-sensitive exposed nerve that sends shooting pain at the least change in temperature). i get stuck, so to speak, in the "horror" of it.
and so, when and if i finally begin to feel the desensitization process kicking in, i think it is fair to be thankful. because while it is true that i may be more at risk of losing the seriousness i had about the reality of the world, i think that we cannot hope to live capably if we are always experiencing the full weight of the darkness. and the lighter load enables us to be joyful. and it enables us to be free. and after all, Christ our passover is sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the feast. for we are free.
posted by Sarah DeFusco at 3:35 PM
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