At our recent women’s retreat, we were invited to bring something with us that somehow represented our deepest longing. Not just something we thought we wanted, or something that we hoped for, but something sacred, some one thing that spoke of our heart’s desire and the deepest parts of ourselves. I brought this little wooden jar.
This little jar is filled with nard from Jerusalem, and I imagine it to be just like the nard Mary poured over Jesus’ feet, just like the nard Judas rebuked her for wasting, just like the nard that filled Mary and Martha’s house with the divine fragrance of costly perfume.
I didn’t choose that little jar because my deepest longing was for that luscious, fragrant, costly nard. I chose it because it reminds me of Mary and of her deepest longing. It seems to me that Mary’s deepest longing was for Jesus. Not for something from Jesus, but a pure, simple and deep desire just to be with Jesus, and always at his feet.
My deepest longing to be like the one who sat at Jesus’ feet, while her sister Martha took care of all the work of making that first dinner party happen. My deepest longing is to be like the one who knelt weeping at Jesus feet when her brother Lazarus died. My deepest longing is to be like the one who anointed Jesus’ feet with the most costly perfume imaginable, and wiped them with her hair.
We often think of Lent as a time of denial - a time to deny ourselves those things which seem to us to be self-indulgent. But I’m thinking of Lent differently this year, and for me there will be no denial, no “giving things up.” I hope instead, that Lent this year will be for me a time of great self-indulgence… 40 luxurious days of indulging that deep, deep longing in my soul, my pure, simple and deep desire for God.
—The Rev. Karen Haig
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