#125: Bitter and Sweet — the journey of Lent (with Tsh Oxenreider)
This month I connected with long-time blogger and author Tsh Oxenreider all about Lent. Tsh grew up big Bible church and after living abroad for many years found herself drawn to the Catholic church. Her new book, Bitter & Sweet: A Journey into Lent is a practical, easy to use devotional tool for leaning into the upcoming season of Lent. Our conversation has got me reflecting on the seasons of nature, especially winter, the darkness and the hope we need, and how Lent grew out of the human need for hope in this season. Did you know that Lent predates the Bible? We talk about all this, and the idea of “being in the season of Lent”, rather than Lent as something you do.
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Transcription
Tsh Oxenreider 00:00
Lent's first day is Ash Wednesday. You've got ashes, usually from last year's Palm Sunday leaves burned, you know, and they take the ashes. And the priest says, you know, as he smudges on your forehead "from dust you came and to dust you shall return", which is the poetic way of saying, "Don't forget, you're going to die." Don't forget that life is short, and that you are going to die. So that's how we start. So we start at death. Well, if you think of what Easter is about, and, you know, Lent leads up to Easter, because we've got this liturgical calendar, you don't have lent without Easter. And Easter is entirely about life. It's not only about life, it's about the audacity that Christ had to overcome death. So basically, death has lost its sting. So we basically have these two bookends of Ash Wednesday saying, "Don't forget, you're going to die. But also, don't worry about it." Because it's not going to consume you, you're actually going to live.
Jonathan Puddle 00:58
Hey, friends, welcome back to The Puddcast, with me, Jonathan Puddle. This is episode 125. Thanks for your patience over Christmas and beyond, my family all got COVID. And so we were pretty much out of commission, I was the sickest of us all, not hospital worthy, thankfully, but not fun, pretty rough. I was laying there in my bed, feeling sick and sad. And realized it was one of those times in life when I had the chance to make some choices about what I wanted to put back into the backpack when I got out of this bed. And so I have been thinking a lot about what I'm up to, what my mixture of responsibilities are, and wondering also, what is connecting the most with you, and what is the most important to you, because I need to build a spiritual life, I need to build a set of rhythms and contents that work for you and work for me. So if you haven't already seen the survey that I've put out, I will link it here in the show notes. And I would love your feedback. It's just a handful of questions that just helps me to understand what aspects of my work are connecting most importantly with you, so that I can focus on the important life-giving things both for you, and for me. Rest assured The Puddcast will not be going away. That's very important to me. And I know it's very important to you, though, I think we're going to drop back to once a month or so in terms of episode frequency, I'm just finding that I can't sustain my own spiritual formation and other rhythms including the amount of parenting that I'm presently doing as a foster parent, while also keeping this thing up weekly. So... and keeping some equality. I, I ran into an interview that I had to reschedule at the very last minute. And I realized I had just done zero prep, and I'm not proud of that. So I am... yeah, going to switch up this rhythm a little bit so that what I bring you is hopefully consistently rich, and good quality, maybe less of it, that maybe that's okay for you. I feel like less is more, which is actually a really great segue into this week's guest. I'm very excited to welcome Tsh Oxenreider to the show. Tsh has been a blogger for years, she's written quite a number of books, At Home In The World; Shadow & Light: A Journey into Advent. And this month, we are talking with her about Bitter & Sweet: A Journey into Easter. And so we are reflecting on Lent and various aspects of sacramental theology that have become very life giving to me, and Tsh shares her journey with those things, her journey into becoming Catholic and not being raised that way. So the big Baptist bible church background for her, so really interesting spiritual journey here. Whether you're a seasoned Lent follower, or suspicious, or it's new to you, I definitely recommend her book. It'll be linked in the show notes. We'll talk all about it here. And I will make sure to mention it at the end of the show, as well. Alright, friends, let's get into the show. I just said moments ago to Tsh that I am trying to get my head back into the game because I haven't been podcasting in two months because I had COVID. And I feel like that is how I also feel about a lot of spiritual practices. You've got a book about Lent, and I know a bit about your life and your movement into sacramental rhythms of life and so on. And I don't know if it's aging, or if it's just the journey or if it's the disruption of the last few years, but I feel more drawn to rhythms and sacramental worship than I ever have before, and I didn't grow up with it.
Tsh Oxenreider 05:06
Yeah.
Jonathan Puddle 05:07
Do you think that that is like a hunger and in all souls? Do you think like, how would it in your journey? Because I don't think Did you grow up with this? I don't know.
Tsh Oxenreider 05:15
Not at all.
Jonathan Puddle 05:16
So, yeah, what happens in... do you think this is everybody or this is?
Tsh Oxenreider 05:20
If it's if it's not everybody, it's nearly everybody that I have talked to. So it seems to be a case that's happening globally. I think, you know, we have COVID, largely to blame. But looking back, I think we can see this trend slowly moving in this direction. Honestly, for the past decade, I think those of us who grew up in a Christian environment, you know, I guess it depends on where exactly we were raised. But largely, the modern western church has kind of lost touch with its roots. And I think there's something in the water right now, that's a lot of us are yearning to go back to those roots. And so for me personally, not having grown up with that, what really instigated the interest came from living cross culturally in a culture that was predominantly not Christian. And so those that were Christians had really thought it through, I think, and it was where the birthplace of the church was, this is Turkey. So you know, you visit these old cathedrals and churches, and you get a sense of how little you are, in a good way, in light of all of church history. And so I think there's just a yearning to participate more in that and to make our experience of connecting with God less about ourselves, and more about something bigger.
Jonathan Puddle 06:43
Yeah. Do you think... I wrote down on my notepad "thought it through." Is there an implication that those of us living in a dominant, let's say, quote, unquote, Christian culture, because so much of our culture has nothing to do with following Jesus... But let's say...
Tsh Oxenreider 06:58
Right?!
Jonathan Puddle 06:59
...that we don't have to think it through, that we can be super lazy and non intentional.
Tsh Oxenreider 07:04
You know, there's the whole debate right now, as our culture moves, more and more secular, whether or not it's easy to be a Christian. And I'm, I won't touch that, because I think that's a whole other topic and an interesting one, but not one that I'm, I'm well versed in speaking to, but I will say I think it's still easy to at least pretend to be a Christian. You know, we, we don't have to explain Christmas, or we don't have to explain going to church on Sundays. And so I think we are largely unaware of how much is just in the water. It's like asking a fish to describe water, it's just, everywhere. Yeah.
Jonathan Puddle 07:45
Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, so so that resonates on a bunch of levels. I grew up like broadly evangelical and charismatic and didn't really even know Catholics or liturgically minded people at all, that was weird over there, and inherently, thus wrong. But Lent is something I started leaning into, like three or four years ago. So like, this is pretty recent for me in my own engagement. But as I said, like I'm drawn more and more and more to these rhythms. I started back in November, like following a daily prayer office, and I'm loving that. And I make it out to Mass periodically, like proper lapsed Catholic periodically, but like pretty good for a Protestant raised person. Tell me a little bit more about your journey. You touched on briefly with Turkey there to tell us a bit more.
Tsh Oxenreider 08:39
You know, I grew up Evangelical, not on the charismatic side on the Bible Church side.
Jonathan Puddle 08:44
Sure.
Tsh Oxenreider 08:45
The way I describe it now is Big Texas church, because if you've been here, you know that there's one on every corner, it seems like, and so it was, it was a great experience, honestly, no ill will toward my upbringing. For the most part, I learned a lot about the Bible. And, you know, I was immersed in good friendships and, and that sort of thing. So. And in fact, the church I grew up in, really emphasized missions, and evangelism, and I'm grateful for that, that led me ultimately to traveling and being in other cultures, but anyway, so I met my husband after college in Kosovo, we were both serving separately. I was teaching English and he was rebuilding houses after the genocide. So this is in the late 90s, early 2000s. And we met there, we got married and it was kind of just assumed, because we both came to the marriage this way and that we would live cross culturally, we both loved it and didn't have to convince each other. So but, you know, fast forward, we ended up moving back to the States to prepare and then we went back to Turkey and our middle guy after he was born there. We had a a lot of health issues and I will not belabor or bore people with those... Long story short, we needed to move back to the States because of health issues that could only be met Stateside, where we had access to things. So what we thought was our plan became not our plan, is my point. But in those years of living in Eastern Europe, in a predominantly Muslim country, that was Slavic-ish in nature, it was Albanian. And then again, in Turkey, very predominantly Muslim, but with a very long, long, long history in the church. God used those moments to really open our eyes about what was actually just Christianese. You know, the Christian culture that we grew up in and what was actually, historically the black and white tennets of the faith. And so we just slowly became interested in that. We found that the environments we grew up in just didn't quite fit anymore based on how we had changed. And you know, what we learned, and so after several years of, kind of, I guess you could call it church hopping. I hate that term. But that's really what it was, you know, we can look back, we became Anglican. And I think it was, because Anglicanism was the via media, you know, it, it had the benefits of Protestantism with the benefits of Catholicism without having to commit to either one. And it also was easier to explain to our parents, you know, we didn't have to tell them, we're becoming Catholic, which is just very scary. That's, you know, that's, that's a big deal. Whenever you're you grew up evangelical. So five, six years, we were Anglican. But then I had honestly been thinking, I mean, I can look back now and see that even in that time, I kind of got the inkling that God was leading us to the Catholic Church. But that was scary to say out loud, so I just would quietly research thanks to YouTube and books and podcasts and all the information that's out there. But then at the start of the pandemic, when lockdown happened, and we couldn't go to any churches anyway, my husband, Kyle, and I looked at each other and I just kind of said, "Hey, maybe we just use this time to just start actually exploring Catholicism and what it might look like for us?" And he was totally on board. And that's long story short, that's how we became Catholic. A year ago yesterday, actually. So yeah, yeah. So we we became Catholic through the ordinariate, which is the Anglican, I mean, it's hard to explain. It's a whole thing. But the diocese that the Catholic Church created in order to welcome Anglicans in so that we kind of jokingly call it the Disney Fastpass of becoming Catholic.
Jonathan Puddle 12:41
For an $1,000 and...
Tsh Oxenreider 12:42
Exactly.
Jonathan Puddle 12:44
Thank you, and congratulations.
Tsh Oxenreider 12:46
Thanks. Thanks. Yeah.
Jonathan Puddle 12:47
That's so cool.
Tsh Oxenreider 12:48
Yeah.
Jonathan Puddle 12:49
I love that. My children are all baptized Roman Catholic, and I pastor children at a charismatic nondenominational church. And so we double dip as much as we can get away with. We have free Catholic education here. One of the one of the public school options in Ontario, the province of Ontario, for the time being at least until the public opinion get swayed against it.
Tsh Oxenreider 13:20
Yeah.
Jonathan Puddle 13:20
I have this option. And so it's it's delightful. And I totally went into it armored up, I was like, oh, man, oh, man, I'm gonna fix everything when they come home each day...
Tsh Oxenreider 13:30
Right!
Jonathan Puddle 13:30
When they, all these heresies. And, and it has been one of the most life giving things for our family.
Tsh Oxenreider 13:37
Yeah, yeah.
Jonathan Puddle 13:39
I get what you're saying about the fear. Like I, I have a difficult time envisioning myself going through conversion classes, or,
Tsh Oxenreider 13:50
Yeah.
Jonathan Puddle 13:51
committing to a process like that, however, even just the other day as discussing some church matters with one of our leadership team. And I said to him, I think the fact is, I actually just don't believe in children's ministry, but you're our children's pastor. That's true. That's true. But I think I, I would rather do something like the Mass, than than what we've been doing and then I'm journeying with all those things. And if you're listening friends, don't worry. But yeah, I I'm so drawn to sacramental rhythms as well. And okay, so let's dive into Lent then. You've got this devotional it's just come out called Bitter & Sweet: A journey into Easter. And I'm intrigued what bitter and sweet represent. I have my own thoughts, but I would love to hear what you came in with.
Tsh Oxenreider 14:51
Yeah. So it's helpful to think of my approach to Lent in light of the entire liturgical calendar. So you know, if you I won't give a long rabbit trail into what it looks like. But if you start at the New Year of the liturgical calendar, we've got Advent, right, we've got the four weeks of Advent. And then we get into Christmastide, which is 12 days, some traditions recognize it as longer than that. And then a short season of Ordinary Time, sorry. And then we move into Lent. So we've already got this rhythm, right of fasting, feasting, fasting feasting kind of thing. With other days peppered in, of course, saints days and Epiphany and all that. But largely speaking, we've got this kind of yin yang that we see recognized throughout the the calendar at large, you never see fasting without feasting. And I think sometimes we forget that we focus so much on the fasting side, so
Jonathan Puddle 15:47
Because we're terribly wretched evil people who need to be punished, right?
Tsh Oxenreider 15:50
And we like feeling like there's something we can do, you know, so, to work it out, you know. So, Lent's, first day is Ash Wednesday. And if you've ever been to an Ash Wednesday service, you know, all sorts of traditions do these and even if you don't go to a church that, you know, does Ash Wednesday say your you can go to any of them and see this, you've got ashes, usually from last year's Palm Sunday leaves burned, you know. And they take the ashes, and the priest says, you know, as he smudges on your forehead "to dust, you came into dust you shall return" which is the poetic way of saying, don't forget, you're going to die. Don't forget that life is short, and that you are going to die. So that's how we start. So we start at death. Well, if you think of what Easter is about, and, you know, Lent leads up to Easter because we've got this liturgical calendar, you don't have Lent without Easter. And that Easter is actually 50 days. It's not, you know, just one day, and then we go back to ordinary time. So sometimes we think of Lent is just this long slog, but Easter is even longer. And Easter is entirely about life. You know, I mean, it's, it's not only about life, it's about the audacity that Christ had to overcome death. So basically, death has lost its sting. So we basically have these two bookends of Ash Wednesday saying, don't forget, you're going to die. But also, don't worry about it. Because it's not going to consume you, you're actually going to live. And so we've got these two like things. And whenever we have these seasons of fasting, we're walking, there's a journey toward them. So the subtitle literally a journey is exactly that. So we start in one place, we get to the other through a set time period. And the bitter comes from the idea of the ashes and comes from the idea of also what it is we tend to focus on with Lent, which is the sin that encumbers us, right? That that leaves a bitterness, there's a taste in our mouth, there's a sin never fulfills its promises that we believe, you know, all the way to sweet, which is the opposite taste of bitter and that's what Easter brings. And there's the literal side of it, you know, the peeps and the jelly beans that we think of with Easter. But Easter is a 50 day, it's the longest fast in the calendar. And so we've got the season of enjoying all the good things. And so the bitterness is really just just a thoroughfare on the way to the sweetness. So that's what the title comes from.
Jonathan Puddle 18:20
I love that. It immediately to me, reminded me of Seders that I've done like Jewish Seders, and the the different foods that you eat as part of it for bringing out like bitter flavors and sweet flavors and, you know, all representing tears and the journey and the, you know, the unleavened bread, all the different bits and pieces. And I think, again, we I know speaking for myself is that I feel like I've I've missed such an embodied earthiness to my faith, I think is I think especially guilty within a very charismatic woowoo context that had a tendency towards like, yay, disembodied escape with the Spirit forever. And the more I lean into the rhythms and sacramental components, the more I find myself, yeah, like, here's some actual dust that I'm going to put on your, on your body, you know, and I'm going to mark you with the physical shape of the cross as if the shape actually meant something. And it's gritty in a way that I feel like my faith hasn't always been
Tsh Oxenreider 19:38
Yeah. Yeah.
Jonathan Puddle 19:40
How do you how do you how do you open the topic up to your non Catholic friends? Your your let's say your your Catho-suspicious friends.
Tsh Oxenreider 19:50
Cathlo-curious? Yeah.
Jonathan Puddle 19:51
That's a very positive way to put it. I remember the comments coming in on my own Facebook when I'm like, Hey, guys, what are you doing for blah, blah, blah this year and everyone's like, Oh, so now you're mewmewmew... Um, I remember back when the Catholic Church was the whore of Babylon. So now that it's not...
Tsh Oxenreider 20:09
right. No, I know what you mean. And I still have, I mean, I will just say a year into doing this. So I'm not an expert. My point, I have largely been pleasantly surprised at people's responses that because they fall into one of two things, genuine curiosity, Oh, tell me why you did this, or we're not going to bring it up because I just don't get it. And that's okay. I heard some just great wisdom. At the... when we were in the process of becoming Catholic and the wisdom was: your first year being Catholic, just enjoy being Catholic, meaning don't necessarily feel like you suddenly need to create a podcast about why it's great to be Catholic, you know,
Jonathan Puddle 20:50
The apologetics....
Tsh Oxenreider 20:52
Right? Just and the great advice simply was, like, just be a good Christian, like, just keep being you, but almost like a better Christian now, and I thought that was so wise. So I will say that that's been my stance on my posture. So far, I have not been a Catholic apologist in the slightest. When my parents and I get together, they make some kind of offhanded comments about Mary worship or, or the saints, and then we just almost kind of laugh it off. So I will say, I haven't had this like amazing answer to all of that yet. I'm working on it, maybe or I'm contemplating it. I will say it also helped that I was Anglican beforehand, because there's I mean, it Anglicanism is almost Catholic, you know, except for just a few things really, and truly. So Lent, and Ash Wednesday was already a part of that. But by and large, the way I explain a more sacramental theology or approach to our relationship with God is exactly what you said that, in the West in the 21st century, we tend to be very much in our heads, you know, we like to think, we like to debate, we like to consume our material digitally. We like to think of other people as avatars. We learn information first by going to youtube. So we're just very used to things just kind of being out there. Like there's not a body to the the heads we see on Twitter or whatever. And that can affect how we think of life. That, you know, before long, we might start thinking of the metaverse as real life and real life is less than or not quite as a vivid version of it or whatever. But the reality is, God put us in actual physical bodies. And if you wanted us to be floating heads, or just ideas, I don't think that would be beneath God to know how to do for whatever reason, we are put in broken frail bodies that do weird things, and need sleep, and food every couple hours, like we're very, very needy on the physical, you know, we we literally grow our food in dirt on the earth like you You can't escape the reality of us being tangible 3D people. And so it also kind of makes sense that God, we would maybe better understand a deeper appreciation for the God who made us through those physical, visceral things. And I love that you brought up Seder because the Catholic tradition largely sees itself as like the next chapter in Judaism, you know, where you've got these rituals and practices and feasts and fasts and community efforts towards all of that, it's not a solitary effort. And so the early church whenever it started practicing things like Lent, honestly, but Lent is older than the canon of Scripture. We have references to Lent in the second century. And and you know, the Council of Rome that decided what belonged in the Bible didn't happen till a couple 100 years after that. So the early church practiced this kind of stuff right away, and it was very familiar with it. It wasn't weird to suddenly, you know, be asked to feast in past, Jesus was well versed in those things. So, you know, the easy the shorthand answer to why sacramentality is, I think of the quote from John Henry Newman, where he said to be steeped in history is to cease to be Protestant, which I think if you wanted to zoom out more, it means, you know, to cease to be the way we do things now.
Jonathan Puddle 24:22
Yeah, yeah. Oh, I love that. It's so it's so interesting. I was just in England recently and I got the chance to go to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne and sit in these little prayer holes, you know, where they believe Cuthbert and Aidan and others prayed, you know, in the 700s, 600s AD, and I went to York again and had Evensong at the Minster. And I remember going to York and seeing the Minster 15-ish years ago when I was like, had just kind of begun deconstructing, and was in a very light organic church, anti establishment kind of phase. I remember walking through that facility and just being disgusted, just being generally like, ugh, gross, so much waste. And now, knowing the history and the worship, and the like you all the words you said, right community practice, embodiment, feast celebration rhythms of grief and life... sitting there, in the cold and feeling the weight of centuries of adoration. There's something to that that you don't get otherwise.
Tsh Oxenreider 25:42
Yeah.
Jonathan Puddle 25:43
Great that you had your mega church building constructed and it fits a million people and you can do everything. Cool, fine. That's great. Keep going. But yeah, I feel like there's such a center of gravity that so many people are being pulled towards, as you said. Brad Jersak I had on the show talking about his journey into the Orthodox Church a few years ago. And, and he said, But for him, it was it was the prayers carried him when he was too broken down and burned out. On defending bad theology. The prayers of the saints carried him like on a litter to the altar.
Tsh Oxenreider 26:24
Yeah.
Jonathan Puddle 26:24
And, and there was something like fundamentally individualistic, even about the way we do faith in this continent, that we're then exported to the rest of the world and told them it's the only truth.
Tsh Oxenreider 26:37
Yep. Yep. I totally get that. I think for me, a huge draw to the Anglican Church after living overseas was the Nicene Creed. You know, it's it's a creed, recited weekly, in a lot of traditions like this. And what we are literally saying is, this is what we believe. And it's so comforting whenever you kind of don't know what you believe, like you're thinking, I don't know, what is black and white, and what's gray. But you know, what, like, literal centuries of Christians have said these words. And I think I can say this. So I'm going to just say it again, every week. I'm going to say it this week. And then okay, I'm going to say it again this week. So, you know, when I go back to my, quote, real life, and I'm, I am faced with all these nuances of of what, what is dogma, and what's, you know, opinion, there's something just really grounding about wisdom that doesn't come from our era at all that has stood the test of time. And it really is a mark of our hubris right now to think that, you know, we suddenly like we're more enlightened than the Christians 1000 years ago, you know, because we've got, we've got laser light shows and screens and big auditoriums, and even even smaller, you know, I'm not trying to just throw mega churches under the bus. Though I'm happy to do that too. But just the modern approach as though it's more enlightened, you know, and that's not also to idolize or fetishize old stuff. Because it's not about that, either. It's not about like, you know, the fallacy of if it's, if it's old, it's better, because I get it: God reveals, you know, doctrine, you know, there's that idea of ongoing revelation. But, you know, if something has been around, and is still being said, and recited, like these old prayers, like these ways of worshipping, then who am I to say, no, no, we've figured it out over here in North America in the past 100 years, you know, that? I mean, I have no ground to stand on.
Jonathan Puddle 28:43
Totally, totally. Yeah, I get that. It's, yeah, it's, it's kind of funny, I remember that, that transition in my own head over like the last 10 years, I've been involved in publishing for a long time. And I've got to get the new word, the fresh again, coming from a charismatic space, the fresh revelation, what's the Spirit saying right now? And there's, there's validity in some of that... but it's like, yeah, let's, let's average some of this out in 1000 year terms and see what God has been doing amongst us people. Okay, so I heard recently, and you probably know more about this, and you can catch us all up. I heard that John's disciples were some of the first to celebrate a feast around the Crucifixion and Resurrection. And what I heard was that in the early days, it was a single feast that that celebrated, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, the Ascension, and I think even Pentecost that was all compressed in this one, wild extravaganza of a weekend. And then as development continued, we have this teasing out process. So I don't know if that's entirely accurate, if I've summarized it right or wrong, but either way, can you walk us through how we ended up with Lent, as we have it today?
Tsh Oxenreider 29:51
I have heard that too. And I don't I'm fascinated by that idea. But yeah, I don't know much about beyond what happened in that one wild weekend other than to say, as the church grew, right, and it was it grew into different cultures, you know it, you know, St. Thomas supposedly went all the way to India, we've got, you know, I mean, it grew largely persecuted for the first 400 years or so. And so it was everywhere. And it was also, I wouldn't say decentralized, it was always like the idea of one unified church was never questioned at all until, you know, I mean, there were questioners that came along, but there was never a full on break from that centralization until the 1500s, with Martin Luther. So up until then, there was this assumption that we've got a unified idea of being a church, even though we look like a million different things in all sorts of different cultures. Of course, this is also, you know, way before the ability to talk to each other in a moment's notice. So if you decided, this is the MO, this is what we're going to do, you might not find out for years, depending on where you live. And so from what I understand the idea of Lent, came at large from the whole liturgical calendar, because there was a need to slow down and live our rhythms in, within the time God's given us. So if we think of seasons, that, you know, we see in the natural world, God has put us in an embodiment of living in tandem with nature that we can't escape. We forget that we can't escape it here, whenever we've got, you know, central heating and air conditioning and plumbing. And we can insulate ourselves now. So we forget what that was like. But, you know, for most of human history, when it got dark, you went to bed, when it got light, you woke up, everything is very artificial now. So it seems a little, you know, it's hard for us to understand. But so there became this natural organic outflow of living in tandem with the seasons, you know, you've got harvest time, you've got planting time, and that's what most humans participated in, you know, we were agricultural, and, and lived in communities. And so, the church established this rhythm of the liturgical calendar to fall in line with what people were doing anyway. And, of course, you've got the northern and southern hemispheres that have a little bit of a difference, but by and large, because it started in the northern hemisphere, when we've got Lent in the dead of winter, you know, like, when it's been going on a few months of winter. And it's not about to be it's not like it's almost over. And it's just honestly, the worst time of year, I think, right?
Jonathan Puddle 32:35
Yeah, if I could interrupt you briefly. I could show you how much snow I have right now.
Tsh Oxenreider 32:42
I bet.
Jonathan Puddle 32:44
You know, no sign of any change on the horizon.
Tsh Oxenreider 32:47
Yeah!
Jonathan Puddle 32:47
It's starting to get into that seasonal affective space where I'm actually I'm having to do a lot more work to dig myself out.
Tsh Oxenreider 32:54
Exactly. And that's where Lint is, you know, Ash Wednesday, you know, it's a little different where I am, because I'm in Texas, so it's not quite as cold. But you still have that, like, tease of Spring where you think, oh, it's warming up? No, it's not. And so it's a time when we're just all naturally blah, you know. And so when we practice Ash Wednesday, or Lent sorry, walking from Ash Wednesday to Easter that is full on in Spring, and I know some people it's still cold where they are, but at least you can fully say "This is Spring," you've got this experience of growth and new life literally happening in the dirt that you walk on, you know, so you've got, you've got the planting that these people were used to doing, you've got the seedlings that are starting, you know, that are going to go into full bloom in the summer. And so you've got a lot of that just organic, visual and aesthetic experience of what it looks like to, to plant in wait of something better. And so I think that the church had wisdom in seeing the need to stretch out what it recognized to be more organic with just our life in the here and now. And so, you know, churches were very communal, you know, when you see those old cities that where you got the church in the middle, and everybody lived in tandem with that the churches had clocks. And that's how you knew what time it was. It was the center of of just ordinary life. It kind of made sense that it also marked time for people. And so that's really where Lent comes from, because it's a marking of time it's a marking of that burying of the seeds, hoping that something good is coming. That we have in the northern hemisphere of of late Winter, early Spring.
Jonathan Puddle 34:39
Yes. Ahh, I love that. We'll take a quick pause so I can say thank you to all of my patrons. Friends, if you are listening to this show, if you want to support it, if you like the work I'm doing and you'd like to help it continue, would you please consider becoming a patron? You can do that patreon.com/jonathanpuddle, it'll be linked in the show notes. And you can support me for as little as $3 a month or $30 a year. And that goes a long way to helping keep this show on the air. And we have a robust little community there where I like to share and discuss things. And it's a lot of fun. So if you are moved by this content and would like to support what I'm doing, please head to patreon.com/jonathanpuddle. That's the best way to support me. Thank you so much. Back to the show. I was just thinking the other day, cause, again, not growing up with this and coming into it if you bump into all these things that are creepy, right? Oh,
Tsh Oxenreider 35:38
yeah.
Jonathan Puddle 35:39
All these things that just seem weird.
Tsh Oxenreider 35:41
Yep.
Jonathan Puddle 35:42
So Maundy Thursday, was this piece that I'm just... Even just the word sounds weird. What does that even mean? Anyway? Anyway, and I genuinely had no clue. And it wasn't until I'd actually just decided to google it one day. And I'm like, oh, so Monday comes from this Latin Mandatum like "to serve" like, because Jesus washed His disciples feet.
Tsh Oxenreider 36:06
Yep.
Jonathan Puddle 36:06
Do this, like I've done for you. Oh, oh, suddenly, it's beautiful and not weird.
Tsh Oxenreider 36:14
Yeah, yeah. The more you learn, the more it seems to make sense. If you think of it outside of our modern context, it might not make sense in our modern world. In fact, that's when just the Sunday Mass or just weekly mass made more sense to me when I realized that the Catholic Church is the opposite of relevant, it's not trying to be hip and trendy and cool at all. And so the whole point is to be different than the rest of your week. It's not trying to be similar to your life. And, you know, you're supposed to go in and it's supposed to feel weird. It's supposed to feel strange. And so I think some of these liturgical practices, we forget that they're supposed to be a little weird, like, chanting sounds cult-like, but it's, you know, or lighting candles, and you know, these rituals that just seem like, why are we doing this and in the midst of, you know, watching a movie or getting dinner ready, and it's because it pulls us out of it. It's like, it reminds us of our citizenship, you know, like we're here in what we can see, but also don't forget, we belong somewhere else to while we wait here on Earth,
Jonathan Puddle 37:24
yes. Okay, that's so interesting to me, because the very first time I went to mass as I've ever had gone as a child, but the very first time I went as an adult, I had gone through this, my listeners have probably heard me share the story a million times, I'm sorry. I was at the stage where I was really kind of like, we were outside of the institutional church, I was still working on staff at a church, we were trying to figure stuff out. And I said to my wife, one day, I just want to go somewhere that feels holy, and old, and traditional. And I don't want anyone to hand me a volunteer sheet. And she said, Oh, well, he should go to the Catholic Church. There's literally one in every part of town, just
Tsh Oxenreider 37:58
right.
Jonathan Puddle 37:58
Just go. And I was like, All right, I will. And it was like this radical thing. And I went, and I sat there, and I didn't know how to kneel properly, or when to cross myself. And I felt a bit like a fish out of water. But I walked... but I loved it. And I and I walked out, thinking it's already over. An hour? Wow, that was fast. And I'm looking around at everybody. And I remember thinking this is so interesting, because that was so different from my normal life. And that was so like, short, and removed and focused. But it felt real. Which means these people must have a living faith, Monday through Saturday. And this isn't the be all and end all of their Christian experience. Oh, gosh, oh, God, oh, goodness, maybe. And this is not to put too fine a point on it. But maybe in our, in our never ending quest for relevance. We have created something so comfortable. And so quote unquote, normal, that it's all we ever needed to have it for our faith. And so the rest of our life can now be absolved of any work for Jesus. Do you follow me on that? Like
Tsh Oxenreider 39:13
100%? Yeah, you know, it's really interesting to think that there is a Catholic church, in every neighborhood, like your wife said, and you can always just go to your nearby Parish, and it will have daily Mass most almost everywhere around the world, there will be a mass every single day. And what I think is really cool about it, especially when I was in this exploratory phase, is that it in a good way, they don't care if I'm there or not. And what I mean is, I mean, you have the passing of the piece where you wave and you know, that is part of the mass, but it would go on if I was there or not. Right. And in fact, if there was nobody there, the priest would still say Mass. It is a daily thing. And so it's you know, the people in the area are invited to come and witness what is happening that's not really about them. And yet it is fully about them. Because that's what Christ came to do. He came to redeem us from death, right? And so we get to witness that every day. But it's not like it depends on my full on interest or participation or willingness to be there. And so to me, that was just something so refreshing, that made me feel like I was put in my rightful place, you know that my faith isn't all... My life isn't all about me. And even though I know well-meaning Protestant traditions say that, and I know I mean, this is not to throw Protestantism under the bus because it really, you know, served me well, in my life. But I think sometimes it just becomes so me focused. And so like, what can this do for me? And how can this sermon, you know, how can we apply it to my life, that we forget that gosh, so little of this really has anything to do with us at all?
Jonathan Puddle 41:02
Yes. Has the shift in sacramental worship for you and even in Lent has it shifted your relationship with the Earth and the creation in the natural world at all?
Tsh Oxenreider 41:11
Oh, 100%. Because if you think of sacramentality, St. Ignatius of Loyola talked about sacramental or just sacramentality being about finding God in all things. I think of it kind of like layers of an onion, you're just kind of peeling up the top layer to see what's really there, is what a sacramental approach to life is. So we've got capital S Sacramental, like the Eucharist, and baptism, but you've also got lowercase sacramental in just the way we move through life. And so if you live more sacramentally, you are noticing God in the wind and in the birds. And that's not to say, that's not a hippie woowoo way, I don't mean it, like, the bird is God. Or, you know, you know what I mean, though, it's recognizing God in the ordinary parts of life. And honestly, what has been so good for me is, it's given me meaning in those moments, because, you know, I don't know if you know much of my background with travel, my family and I traveled around the world for a while, that's totally fine. We spent a year living out of backpacks traveling around the world. And I had always felt this like, frustration about moving back from living overseas, because that's just what I wanted to do with my life. And it just felt so ordinary, coming back to, you know, just being a normal person. But having a sacramental approach to life made me feel so much more at peace with just the ordinary bits of life. And so to connect that to the earth, it's meant that gardening has become my favorite. Aside from reading, it's my favorite pastime. And the reason is because I like to get my hands on the dirt, especially when I podcast and I write books. And so a lot of my work is done via screen. It is so healthy for me to shut that screen down and to, like, have to do things slowly and manually and dirty and mess with bugs and the chickens nearby and the, you know, all the things that haven't changed since time began here on earth. Because I think that's the very definition of sacramentality. You know, seeing what's really there. So yeah, it's changed everything.
Jonathan Puddle 43:24
That's so good. I bake.
Tsh Oxenreider 43:26
Ooh, I love that. Yeah.
Jonathan Puddle 43:28
And especially sourdough, and especially like, yeah, so let's make bread the way humans have made bread for ever.
Tsh Oxenreider 43:34
Now. Did you do this? Did you do this before COVID? Are you one of those?
Jonathan Puddle 43:38
I had dabbled in sourdoughs before way before COVID. And I just never, I just never got I never had a successful. I was not patient enough.
Tsh Oxenreider 43:46
Right.
Jonathan Puddle 43:47
COVID gave me forced patience show.
Tsh Oxenreider 43:51
Yeah, I get it.
Jonathan Puddle 43:52
So I was not jumping. I would like to claim that I was not jumping on the bandwagon. And my proof of that is that I'm still doing it to this day.
Tsh Oxenreider 43:58
There you go.
Jonathan Puddle 43:58
So there we go. Like those of us who continued blogging past 2008
Tsh Oxenreider 44:05
Exactly.
Jonathan Puddle 44:05
Way to go us. Okay, my children kind of lead Lent in my home because you're in Catholic school. For for families who don't have such a blessed luxury as me. Do you have some thoughts on family involvement, kids, translating some of that?
Tsh Oxenreider 44:25
Well, the way I wrote my book was, so I it's a companion book to my Advent book. So I wrote Shadow & Light, which in a similar format, which is every day, it's like an open and go, with five different things you can participate in. And so I wrote these books because I couldn't find what I needed myself as a parent. So I just say that to make it sound. It's so people know, it's not like I'm super enlightened, or like our kids are super excited about Advent and Lent, especially Lent, they're not. But I wrote the thing I needed, which was I wanted something open and go. I didn't um, I didn't want something that required me to go find craft sticks and cotton balls. And I'll you know, or for me to go to seminary to understand it needed to be something accessible yet I wanted something meaty and rich and to the point and short. And so when I tell people or when people are like I want to practice Lent in my home, I've never done it before how on earth do I even explain this to my kids? When I say I wrote the book for for both, like the novice and the expert, this is what I mean. I say go in really simply because Lent is not about quote, doing it doing something it is. But it's also not it's not the doing is not the point. I kind of jokingly talk about, like, the spoiler at the beginning of Lent is you're going to mess up. Like, you know, the point is not to like say I did Lent perfectly, because that's not the thing. sort of go in really slow, kind of the shallow end of things. And if you use something like Bitter & Sweet, pick two of the things like if it feels too overwhelming, or if your kids are little, and they can't sit still, for more than five minutes, pick two things like I've got a short reading that I wrote that I wrote, a short piece of scripture, a question to ask, an old prayer to recite, and then a song to listen to. And then weekly, I've got art to look at, pick two of those things, if that feels overwhelming, or do some with your kids do the rest on your own, or do more one day one another day when you're like, you know, got to get to the dentist or whatever. So I guess my overall advice for parents is to let go of the idea of "doing Lent" and maybe just "being in Lent" is, you know, maybe the better way for us to think of it because that's what our kids need anyway, you know, instead of feeling like they get a gold star and being a Christian, you know, right.
Jonathan Puddle 46:55
Well, yes. Isn't that isn't that so classic? Yes, that would absolutely be okay, so. So yeah, the perspective that my tradition raised me and is "Great. How can I win at Lent and gold stars at Lent?" Versus I love what you said about being in Lent because that's the church calendar. So whether you know it or participate in it or not. This is the time of year you are presently in.
Tsh Oxenreider 47:16
That's exactly right.
Jonathan Puddle 47:17
And you're welcome to lean into that as much or as little as you would like.
Tsh Oxenreider 47:21
Exactly, exactly. It's a great way to put it.
Jonathan Puddle 47:23
As I began to think about Lent, the language that came to me was like surgery, like you fast before surgery. You prepare your body and soul for transformation. And I want my heart transplant to be successful.
Tsh Oxenreider 47:37
Yeah, right.
Jonathan Puddle 47:40
Have you read Pillars of the Earth?
Tsh Oxenreider 47:42
No!
Jonathan Puddle 47:42
By Ken Follet.
Tsh Oxenreider 47:43
No, but I know I know that author...
Jonathan Puddle 47:45
yeah, I know that you like to read it. I just wondered. Historical fiction, but it it's all sort of, there's a whole series of books that cover from like the seven hundreds to like the 1100s in England, and so it's peak liturgical, agrarian, English life. And that series did so much for my love of architecture and art and rhythm of church. And so if you want to get really stuck into a lengthy meaty book with villains that aren't vanquished until the final page, then... Pillars of the Earth.
Tsh Oxenreider 48:25
It sounds up my alley, I just wrote it down so I'm gonna go look it up afterwards.
Jonathan Puddle 48:28
Super fun. What is capturing your attention? What's beautiful to you, right now?
Tsh Oxenreider 48:38
Daily walks for me, which I think sounds so uninteresting, except they're not because like I was saying earlier about gardening, they force me out of my head. I'm very much in my head person. Like I can live I can spend hours not talking to someone and researching, like, I love that part of my work as a writer. And as a parent, you know, with with loud kids, sometimes I just kind of go inward. A walk forces me out. It doesn't ask me to, to talk and have interesting things to say, I just get to participate in my neighborhood. And so and, you know, like we've talked about this time of year, it's not always ideal. You know, nobody wants to, to be outside in the gray and then the slush. But there's something about the liturgy of just a daily walk and we're not talking big. We're talking 15-20 minutes. That's been really good for me because I do it even if I don't want to I do it even if the weather's not great, other than if it's like literally pouring down or something. I just do it. And it is such a good ritual for me. I do in the middle of the day, just because I work from home and I can it's kind of a break. It's when my brain tends to kind of go down anyway and I just need that moment. So to me it's adding it just adds so much beauty to my day because it reminds me that I'm not just a thought or I don't just live in my brain.
Jonathan Puddle 50:00
Yeah. So good. And do you have a dog? Or do you walk alone?
Tsh Oxenreider 50:04
No, I do have a dog. And that helps at helps. I mean, I would be totally fine walking alone. And I do sometimes. But yes, I do have a dog. She loves it. She starts and he knows exactly when it's time to go on a walk. And it's it's nice. It's a good ritual.
Jonathan Puddle 50:17
Yeah, Mommy, it's time to get out of your head back into your body. And my body!
Tsh Oxenreider 50:22
She starts jumping as soon as she knows, like, what shoes I'm putting on. So yeah,
Jonathan Puddle 50:26
yeah, my dog's the same. We started walking really intentionally during COVID It was like we have got to get out of this...
Tsh Oxenreider 50:32
Yes.
Jonathan Puddle 50:33
...tiny, tiny world. And yeah, and now the dog helps to.
Tsh Oxenreider 50:37
For sure.
Jonathan Puddle 50:38
Friends, I really highly recommend you go and get Tsh's book bitter and sweet a journey into Easter, you'll find it linked in the show notes. And I will talk a bit about more about accessing her stuff after this. Anything else you want to leave with us about Lent or the practice or anything.
Tsh Oxenreider 50:54
Umm, other than just, I think Lent is a great season to ask God to surprise us. You know, because when we fast, we're fasting to make room for something else. We're not just fasting to like to earn our medal as a Christian. It's to, to hear from God a little clearer. And so I like to pray at the beginning of Lent, that God would surprise me. And so I just invite other people to do that too, be open to whatever God wants to tell you in this season.
Jonathan Puddle 51:24
Thank you. I love that. Tsh would you pray for us as we close?
Tsh Oxenreider 51:26
I will! This is from St. Anselm of Canterbury. And he says, Draw me to you, Lord, in the fullness of your love. I am wholly yours by creation. Make me all yours too in love. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Jonathan Puddle 51:47
Amen. Thank you Tsh, I really enjoyed that. I feel a little rusty on the mic. I feel like I was dominating that conversation a bit too much. My apologies. It was the first time in about two three months that I've done that was not the first time I've talked to another human, thank God, though one might be mistaken for thinking it was. Anyway go and check out to Tsh's brand new book Bitter & Sweet: A Journey into Easter. It's available right now you can grab it, order it today. It'll be here in... hopefully with you in time for the beginning of Lent, March 8. So head over to jonathanpuddle.com, you'll find the show notes there. You'll also find links to my Amazon store where you'll find this book and all the other books that I've had on the Puddcast recently. Thank you so much for listening. If you liking what I'm doing, if you'd like to support the show, keep it on the air, then please head to patreon.com/jonathanpuddle and you can become a patron for $3 a month or $30 a year. Share this with a friend, tell the world, helps me out. Go grab one of my books too, You Are Enough: Learning to Love Yourself the Way God Loves You. It's a 30-day kind of devotional let's say. It's a little different from your Christian devotional. But it's set up that way full of guided meditation to learn to love yourself better. And my next book is coming out in a few months actually, I just submitted the final manuscript to publisher recently, last week in fact. That is a men's Bible Devotional little bit of a different take not exactly what I thought I'd be working on next but the opportunity appeared. And I'm really proud of it. So if you have a man in your life, that you would like to be reading more of the Bible, or he maybe enjoys the Bible and just wants a fresh approach. Then keep an ear out for my forthcoming men's Bible devotional. Alright friends, lovely to spend some time with you. Grace and peace. We will be back about a month from now. On the Puddcast. Bye for now.