by Rev. Lynne Hinton
The rock is cumbersome. And I keep taking it out of my pocket and leaving it places. In the car. On my desk. At the office.
It was my friend’s idea to ritualize my surrender of resentments for Lent. Carry a stone around with me to live into the weight of resentment. It’s been helpful as a reminder that I really want to let go. And the taking it out and leaving it reminds me that the things we carry around with us, the grudges, the bitterness, don’t just stay in one place, one relationship. Rather, we take them into other places, other relationships, other parts of our lives.
It is my intention to think of a different resentment each week, write a letter to the thing I resent, the person I have not yet been reconciled with and finally, let the rock go.
Then pick up another and start again.
It’s interesting to consider how the antagonistic feelings, the negative emotions take up so much room in my spirit, interesting to consider the ways stones block the flow of grace. I am now more aware than ever that unhealed wounds harden, what has been left unforgiven takes up soul space.
I’ve picked up my third rock this third week of Lent, working on an old resentment, one I thought I had made peace with. But the stone is sharp and clumsy in my pocket, reminding me that the old pain is still there and still in need of resolution. I take it out, turn it over in my hands and recall how it felt when the incident first happened, how raw and sore I was for a while, how I thought I was well past it.
I return the rock to my pocket and head out for a meeting, the weight of the suffering still present, still felt.
One by one, I pray to let go. One by one I ask for the burden to be lightened. One by one I know I stand in the need of grace in this work of forgiveness and surrender.
Lent has become important to me this year serving as the reminder that so often what I had imagined was over and done is still, sometimes, present and sometimes still weighing me down. And like Lazarus called forth from the grave by the Living Christ, I am invited to be unbound and set free.
