Bright Sadness

A Lent Season So Sad, Yet Unexpectedly Bright

Lenten Season

He Is Able

When all seems unwound and unstable 
He will right it 
He is able 

When life comes at you fast 
And you can’t catch a break 
He will steady you 
He is able 

When the unexpected happens 
And your mind is reeling 
He will hold you fast
He is able 

When the grief is so deep-the tears won’t come 
And when they do they won’t stop 
He collects them, precious treasure 
He upholds you, He is able

-Daisy Fuentes Dronen

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“I do not understand the mystery of grace—only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.”

-Anne Lamott

A Life update

tea in the most beautiful spaces with the most tender friends. I think I am becoming a dog person. I will always gravitate to the light. The beauty of Glen Eyrie is breath taking. The Hope garden is blooming with tulips and they make my soul sing.

This disposition is the harmolype — the bright-sadness — of which the fathers and the mothers speak. Even in the dryness of our desert journey, we are offered a sustaining taste of the sweet, the living waters. Even amid the gloom, we apprehend a glimmer of the light.
-Father Andrew Morbey

The poem above is an example of what Father Morbey describes as the bright sadness of Lent. I first heard the term bright sadness on the Lectio 365 app. It caught me by surprise—and also gave me words to describe the season my heart has been in. I went looking for more info and found this article with this description of the Lenten season, and I felt seen, even held. This season of desolation and dryness was not something to fix, but a gift to receive.

I began the Lenten season with much anticipation and, thankfully, with my heart open—even if just a tiny bit—to the whispers of less. The ones that invite us to less of ourselves, so that we can have more of the divine. The slowing down of my worldly wants to embrace the breaking in of the Kingdom of God.

But what happens when I am not able to feel the goodness or the nearness? I must admit, I was left to wonder if I would be able to draw near when numbness seems to have a tight grip on my feelings these days. What happens, I’ve found, is that the break in the diaphanous gauze that shimmers between heaven and earth thins in ways unexpected.

I found the words I would need in this season—I had already written them two years ago. I opened up the same Lent journal from the past two years to find that the poems I had written there would be the ones to carry me, helping me feel Him near this season.

So, little by little, I transcribed those poems again—tweaking a word and a rhyme here and there, but mostly just feeling the nearness of God with me. In the dry and parched lands of the desert, the living water was cutting streams of refreshment. His guiding sweetness helped me realign my vision to the goodness and mercy that were following me—and will continue to follow me.

The photo gallery above is a tiny sample of the actual, real-life Psalm 23 moment I’m living right now. I am including the whole Psalm here because I needed to read it again and maybe you need to as well.

'“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters.

He restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil, for you are with me;

your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,

and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

Psalm 23

I love this quote by Mary Oliver: “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” So today, I’m choosing to do just that—to allow life to astonish me with beauty and reshape my soul with hope. This beauty, this brightness, is not arbitrary; it is, in fact, an invitation to return again. To rest and be held—even when I can’t feel, do, or create.

With the start of Holy Week I am feeling a shift in my soul. I am not sure what that will mean for finding words to share with you here. But I do hope to share with you a few of my lenten poems as well as some prayers that I have written for Holy Week.

He has drawn near and we are never the same again.

Gracefully,

Daisy