Cori Connors: Writing for Lent

Twelve. As I was sewing face masks today, part of my current pandemic practices, I needed a metric ruler to use a pattern I found online. When you sit at a sewing machine you have time to ponder interesting things. I found four rulers, all of them divided in twelve inches. I started wondering why rulers were twelve inches long.

Twelve is kind of an interesting number. Who picked that as the limit of a ruler? Twelve months in a year. Why? And why are eggs and donuts sold in dozens? My brother and I even have a thing for the Sesame Street song “Twelve”, the one about lady bugs having a picnic. There are twelve notes in a chromatic scale, and twelve major Greek gods (if I remember correctly). (You can really let your mind go bonkers at a sewing machine!) Then, as I pondered to the rhythm of my needle pumping up and down through fabric, I got to wondering why Jesus specifically called twelve apostles, the pattern we still follow today in the restored church. Twelve’s been on my mind. It’s a nice little benign diversion from fixating on worldwide pandemics. There must be something divine in collections of twelve.

The clock struck twelve, I’m serious, right when I decided to ditch the writing I had been doing on my computer. You may, or may not, know that I write every day during the Christian season of Lent. Even though I am not Catholic, and we don’t practice, as a church, the tradition of Lenten sacrifice. I made a decision quite a while ago that I should exercise the opportunity of becoming more aware of myself and my Lord in the season running up to Easter. So I made a commitment to write every single day during the 40 days of Lent, before Easter. It’s become quite the experience for me. My brain has to prepare itself, coming up with a subject day after day, and trying to write something fresh and interesting, while working to develop my skills as a thinker and a writer. Since my life doesn’t stop to let me add this to my days, and I am especially skilled at avoidance bhavior, I often end up writing into the wee hours of the morning (like right now).

I opened up my bog a few minutes ago, to start a new post. (I force myself to publish what I write so I have the pressure of accountability.) Then I got curious. When did I start this Lent Writing thing anyway? It took me a full 20 minutes to scroll down through my posts to see how many years I’ve been doing it. Turns out that number is… you guessed it…twelve.

I guess I started in 2008. Two-thirds of the most important people in my life were still waiting their turn in line back then, up in their heaven-place. Our Kate was starting her stint with Teach for America in Houston. Sarah was trudging through her medical residency in Kansas City, with two babies and a heart yearning for home. Annie was newly married, and John and Ash had recently moved into their house on Quail Run Road. 2008 was the year Dave was sworn in as a judge, and Gram, Cyndy and Cindy were still with us, among so many others who have since switched places with those grandlings who floated down to us since then.

Twelve years of making myself aware, and then recording something every day, has preserved so much of who I am, so I am grateful for all those late-night musings saved on my blog. But I am, I might add, a little weary.
So here I sit, at 3:20 am. Dave is sound asleep in our bed. In a few hours he will rse and make a living for us. (this writing stuff doesn't pay, at least in worldly wages).
It's late, and I'm thirsty. But the sacredness of this particular snip in time is evidenced in my dry mouth. I resist the desire to take a drink of water, because we began, this night, our participation in a world-wide fast. Until the sun sets tomorrow, we symbolically join hands, asking our God to increase our faith, and to preserve us collectively and individually from this pandemic.

The act of fasting in prayer is a powerful current that draws me quickly to my Savior. Like electricity, I don’t understand how it works, I just know it does. Each time I feel thirst, I hear His words… “I thirst.” When I feel pangs of hunger, I hear his words… “Hunger and thirst after righteousness.”

The relatively easy pinch of suffering takes me to Him, and my faith is added upon.

These days, more than ever, we need help. I need help! I need that gift of faith He has promised me, a dozen times over. I need the weave in the fabric of my heart to open up to Him and let Him infuse into me, so that even if some unwanted little virus finds its way into my life, my spirit will be able to say, “It is well with my soul.”