Exponent II
Exponent II

A feminist forum for women and gender minorities across the Mormon spectrum
Lent
Picture of Nancy Ross
Nancy Ross
Nancy Ross is an associate professor Utah Tech University, where she has been teaching for 16 years. Her Ph D is in art history, but her current research focuses on the history and sociology of religion. She recently co-edited a book with Sara K.S. Hanks titled "Where We Must Stand: Ten Years of Feminist Mormon Housewives" (2018) and has just co-edited “Shades of Becoming: Poems of Transition” with Kristen R. Shill. She is an ordained elder in Community of Christ and pastor of the Southern Utah congregation and works for the Pacific Southwest International Mission Center as an Emerging Church Practitioner.

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The Shape of My Lenten Journey

Picture of Nancy Ross
Nancy Ross

The Shape of My Lenten Journey

The early process
Involved the identification of
A problem
A deficit
Strategies to resolve it
Embracing a particular goal.

I made a big effort at the beginning
Some early success
Mixed with
Reward
Benefit
Fulfilment
Then celebrated the process.
“Lent is a blessing on the road to self-improvement.”

Life took over.
Early success
Transformed into failures of all sizes
Teaching a greater lesson
Accompanied by feelings of futility
As if I should have known
This lesson
All along.
I reveal my folly anew
Each Lenten season.

Near the end
The initial goal died,
Good intentions
Swallowed by my predictable humanity
A condition I could not tame or shake.

I’m now anticipating Holy Week then Easter
All will be made new somehow.
I will try again next year.

Perhaps something must die,
Work itself into a mess
For Easter (or God?) to be waiting
Ready to renew
Revive
Resurrect
My willingness to
Let go.

Nancy Ross is an associate professor Utah Tech University, where she has been teaching for 16 years. Her Ph D is in art history, but her current research focuses on the history and sociology of religion. She recently co-edited a book with Sara K.S. Hanks titled "Where We Must Stand: Ten Years of Feminist Mormon Housewives" (2018) and has just co-edited “Shades of Becoming: Poems of Transition” with Kristen R. Shill. She is an ordained elder in Community of Christ and pastor of the Southern Utah congregation and works for the Pacific Southwest International Mission Center as an Emerging Church Practitioner.

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