The woman in front of me at the coffee counter has an open face and a gray smudge on her forehead. She turns and smiles and I dare to ask about it.
"Today is Ash Wednesday," she tells me and explains that the daub of ash was applied by a priest. "It's the beginning of Lent for Catholics," she continues. "It's a time to purify, and struggle, and prepare for the rebirth of life in the spring."
I ask her what she's giving up for Lent. But her cup is ready, and I need to give my order.
"I have a few minutes if you want to hear about it," she says, looking me in the eye for a long second.
I feel a mixed impulse. Is she coming on to me? I wonder. I don't think so. But what is she after? Nevertheless, something in me responds and I say, "Uh huh, yeah, sure."
She's sitting at a table in the corner, sipping from a paper cup with the lid off. She's middle aged and plump, curly gray hair, but her skin is smooth and has a golden glow.
Sitting down I ask if she is Catholic, quickly realizing that is probably a stupid question.
"I'm a recovering Catholic but I still go to church sometimes," she says. "I go for myself. It's a personal thing. I also find I am able to soak up some of the prayers that are floating around in there."
"What do you mean?" I ask her.
"It may sound strange," she says, "but those prayers have an energy, a force, and they collect in the church. If I get really still I can breathe it in and it's like a kind of food."
"It sounds like you are stealing other people's prayers," I say, and her serious expression breaks into a grin.
"Well, they aren't using them, are they?" she says.
"That sounds sacrilegious," I say, but as I speak a truck slows down with noisy Jake brakes outside the cafe and she doesn't hear me.
"Are you observing Lent?" I ask. "Are you fasting or renouncing something?"
"Yes," she says. "I'm using the occasion to practice for my own purposes, not because of any Church dogma."
"How do you do that?" I ask
"I think of Lent as a kind of inner hygiene," she says. "It is not about penance. It's a chance to turn up the intensity of work on myself."
"How do you 'work on yourself?'" I ask.
"That's a big question. But during Lent I think about it in three opposite directions," she says.
"'Three opposite directions' is impossible," I say.
"Not if you add another dimension," she says.
"Ha! OK, what are they?" I ask.
"Well, generally speaking they are positive, negative, and neutral," she says. She is beginning to sound esoteric, but she doesn't seem like a crazy person mumbling fragments of New Age nonsense.
"Are you talking about electricity?" I ask.
"Yes, among other things," she says. "It's the same principle. The work on myself during Lent has three parts. One is taking something on—a daily practice to build up force and energy. That's the positive part. It requires a real effort, like the black, yang part of the Tao symbol. The negative part is putting something away, a habit. I'm giving up caffeine this time." She points to her cup. "I'm drinking herb tea. It's horrible and I don't like it, but it gives me something to struggle with, like rubbing two sticks together makes a fire."
"It sounds like masochism," I say.
"Yes, it sounds like it, but it's not," she says. "It's to generate energy for my work on myself."
"What's the neutral part of Lent?" I ask.
"The neutral is about being receptive to something beyond myself, beyond my own effort and struggle," she says. "In the language of the Church it is opening to the Love of Christ."
"Whoa, that sounds religious," I say.
"It does sound like that, but it's a real thing," she says. "Do you want to try?"
"Try what?" I ask.
"Try feeling the Love of Christ," she says.
Suddenly I see what's happening. She does have an agenda. She is some kind of manipulative missionary trying to get me to join her church that's not a church. I began to fidget and think about getting out of there.
"Why don't you just try it?" she says.
"What do I have to lose?" I say, nervously.
"Jesus's love is everywhere," she begins in a resonant voice. "Like the air, we are swimming in it and breathing it in. It is a love that shines equally on every part of you. Nothing is hidden from Jesus' love, and nothing is rejected. All your secrets, your prides and shames, your strengths and weaknesses both real and imagined, the things you've done, the things you haven't done... Jesus loves every part of you exactly as you are. Yes, love is general, but it is also particular. Jesus loves you. You are loved. Can you feel it?"
