Renascence

"...as you know the weaknesses of each of us, let each one find you mighty to save."

Collect appointed for the 1st Sunday of Lent

Today is the birthday of Edna St. Vincent Millay, an early 20th century poet, a renowned social figure and noted feminist in New York City during the Roaring Twenties and beyond. My senior English teacher referred to her as "Edna" suggesting that they were close friends which turned out not to be true. But I never forgot her name or her best known poem "Renascence."

Renascence describes well what we are attempting during Lent. Another word for renaissance, it is a less formal term and more relevant to personal change. Mr. Google defines it as "the revival of something that has been dormant." In her famous poem, Millay relates an experience of exploring life and death and rebirth in nature braiding the trinity of the cycle of life into a mystical experience achieved in meditation on a mountaintop. As the stage of rebirth begins, Millay exclaims, "I breathed my soul back into me," and she continues to describe the magnificence of the renascence, concluding with the following words:

"The soul can split the sky in two,

And let the face of God shine through."

So too as we face our weaknesses and the temptations which fool us into believing they don't exist, Lent is a time to revive our dormant souls, freeing them from distractions and siren songs, reclaiming the natural cycle of Creation's rebirth and letting our "souls split the sky in two/ And let the face of God shine through."

See Millay's full poem below for any of you who loves poetry like I do!

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/55993/renascence