One of the first signs of spring in my hometown corner of the world was a trip to my grandfather’s sugar shack, usually with my cousins. It was a crude little dirt-floored structure nestled at the edge of a stand of sugar maples. At one end of the shack, a huge metal vat the size of a bathtub filled half of the shack. Underneath the vat, and of a similar size, was a wood burning stove with a curvy little stovepipe that rose from behind the vat and escaped through a hole in the slanted aluminum roof. Bright winter sunlight broke through a thousand tiny cracks in the walls, and on every available stud inside, nails held ladles, spoons, nets and filters. Two folding chairs and a small homemade table were the only other furnishings. It wasn’t especially colorful or comfortable inside the shack, but I remember it with a smile. Maybe it was the smell. For 2-3 weeks every spring, a sweet, woodsy aroma of smoke, syrup, moisture and the earthy outdoors combined with the barn-like smell of my grandfather’s coveralls. I can almost taste the hope of spring as I type.

The syrup making ritual involved checking sap buckets daily, collecting it in 50 gallon size containers that would then be dumped into the vat in the sugar shack- 43 gallons of sap yields just 1 gallon of sticky, sweet syrup, so this was truly a labor of love. Mixing, testing, stirring, feeding the fire that raged below the vat, skimming the syrup with a net to remove impurities that were distilled to the surface, day and night, batch after batch, waiting for the exact moment of perfection- too long and it would burn, too short and the flavor was weak.

For my part, I was involved as a tourist, but for my grandfather and uncles, it was laborious. The end product? Clear glass quart jars of syrupy, caramel-colored goodness would file into my grandmother’s mudroom weeks later.

Today, during this same season of the year, I am involved in an entirely different ritual of purification.

With my prayer, “Cleanse my heart Lord. Purify me from impurities.”
I imagine, “Turn up the heat in the old wood stove. Load on the firewood Lord.”

With the common practice of giving up something for Lent, I imagine the excesses of my life being distilled at a rumbling boil, escaping through the curvy stovepipe of my spirit into the vastness above.

With the difficult work of self-reflection and prayer, I imagine the physical labor of my family members, toting heavy buckets of sap, standing or sitting around a steaming vat day and night, chopping and feeding logs to a ferocious fire for days on end.

And the end result of both processes? A beautiful sweetness that can only be produced through a process- a process of bringing what I have to the sugar shack, stoking the fires of reflection hot, releasing that which is impure (allowing another to skim off the really nasty stuff), and looking forward to the hope of a sweeter, closer relationship with my Maker.

As I allow Him, God is happy to illuminate the clouds of my watery self being released toward Him. He accepts it, releases me from the burden of carrying it, and I anticipate the closeness of knowing Him in all of His flavorful goodness as the days of Lent progress.

This post originally appeared at Erin’s blog Five Crisps: One Mama’s Musings on Her Three Boys and Life.

We have made a new friend, Paul, from Kenya. He eats with us frequently and shares many stories of his country and home. He has already become such a blessing to our family- enlarging our hearts and opening our eyes to a world beyond our own trivial worries.

Last night he was sharing about school in Kenya. Students have to pay for uniforms, books and school fees to attend school. It is a great privilege to attend school. Children cry if they have to stay home from school for any reason and walk many miles sometimes to get an education.

I shared that overall, the perspective of US school children is disappointingly different. Most don’t want to go to school. Teenagers work hard to skip school and many drop out as soon as they are old enough in favor of going their own way.

He was not surprised, just shook his head and said wisely, as he often seems to do, “They do not understand that ‘I am because we are, and we are because I am. (from Desmund Tutu I think he said)’” He went on to explain that in Kenya, children know and understand that their entire existence is dependent on the “we” and the fate of the “we” is dependent on the responsibility (or lack thereof) of the individual. So if I am successful in school, I can help my whole family and whole community. If I squander my chances, I may indirectly or directly cause the death of my family members, friends and community because I become a burden to them, a mouth to feed that can not contribute as effectively as one who pursues his opportunities- whatever they may be- farming, education, etc.

So, short of exposing our children to the travesites of poverty and death, how do our children learn a sense of “we.” How do they come to the important realization that their actions, even as young adolescents, will have far reaching effects for their children, their husbands and wives and even their grandchildren? From teaching this age for a few years, I would assert that they have little to NO understanding of cause and effect that transcends their own lives. Psychologists say this is a normal phase of their development- that adolescents are trapped in a “me” world that is healthy and normal until they move onto the next phase of their development. But is that entirely true? It may help us understand them but should we let them languish there? What can we do to broaden their perspectives? And in so doing broaden our own as adults.

I am because we are, and we are because I am.

This post originally appeared at Erin’s blog Five Crisps: One Mama’s Musings on Her Three Boys and Life.