I’ve seen a Dying Eye
Run round and round a Room—
In serach of Something—as it seemed—
Then Cloudier become—
And then—obscure with Fog—
And then—be soldered down
Without disclosing what it be
‘Twere blessed to have seen—(#547, Emily Dickinson)
I haven’t died yet; but I’ve died thousands of times. Sometimes to addictions. Sometimes to fears. Most often to pride. It seems that my pride has more than nine lives, so I have to keep dying to it. Sometimes I die to dreams that I have dreamed for myself, or others. I have had to die to the image that I keep of myself, that I attempt to hold before others.
But with each death something is discovered, found, seen. But it is often hard to explain to those who have yet to died. As Dickinson says, what the dying Eye can see we cannot see unless we too do die.
Lent is this practice of dying. And with it come glimpses of life.