The tradition of denial in Lent (no chocolate/alcohol/internet) aims to take away distractions and turn our attention to God. But in these warming days of pre-Spring, I decide, instead, to have something of an extramarital affair — for 40 days at a time over the last 5 years — with a dead woman.

Emily Dickinson lived from 1830 until 1886. She left her home for a year to try college, but returned to garden and write for the rest of her life. She wrote many long letters to dear ones, sharing her poetry, but she hid far more from the world than she shared. Of the 1799 poems she wrote, just 10 were published. She had hoped those poems would die with her, but her sister found them.

This would be a compelling tale, but, more, New England in the mid-19^th century was an explosion of ideas. Amid the Second Great Awakening, the Puritanism of previous generations gave way to a more personal view of salvation. God spoke to people individually, rather than through the acceptance of theological propositions mediated by the educated clergy. This new religious fervor sparked unheard of social change. Slavery was viewed as a hideous sin against the God that made each of us. Women soon pushed for their right to vote. Lastly, that precious God-given gift of our humanity was wrecked by alcohol ruining the lives we were given. Emily resided within the heart of the culture that emerged from this spiritual explosion, where long held beliefs were overturned, culminating in a Civil War.

So when I date Emily during Lent, even though she is dead, her world lives in my head. So much so that a book preceded my courtship.

Not raising her own family and striking out on her own, Emily fully submerged her brilliance into seeing the world in and around her. Her words fully connect and mystify every reader revealing a mind that is of 19^th century New England, but really of each of us at this moment. Given her unique vantage point, Emily’s words particularly come alive in the Lenten season. Amid the funny, silly, even casual observations of her poetry are the direct connection to the truths that are denied amid the distractions Lent tries to abandon. Her words are metered, conspired, woven and obtuse — but they are her. In these isolated moments she is simply declaring what she sees — often never thinking anyone else would see her thoughts.

She controls that world. But do we really control the graces we have been given? Thousands upon thousands have spent lives pulling apart every word, phrase, concept and symbol Emily employed. Numbering each poem, defining each piece to fit their understanding of her. But she was of her moment — a woman in 19^th century New England. Here, in what has been deemed Poem #488, Emily becomes what no woman was in her time:

Myself was formed — a Carpenter —
An unpretending time
My Plane — and I, together wrought
Before a Builder came —

To measure our attainments —
Had we the Art of Boards
Sufficiently developed — He’d hire us
At Halves —
The Bench, where we had toiled —
Against the Man — persuaded —
We — Temples build — I said —

Emily Dickinson would not be judged; she would make Temples. The “Art of Boards” made of her words was just her view of the beauty God gave her. In today’s fraught culture we are writhing in the evolution of our society as were the convulsions of 1863. Humanity can rethink our culture; it is ours to define. Law and governance and war project values into our culture. But do we make who we are?

Women carpenters were unheard of in 19th century America. But Emily could see the extension of who she was into a place where only men were — “Myself was formed — a Carpenter.” The beauty of making is undeniable for some. And making is not just the physical assembly of things.

For her “My Tools took Human — Faces — ” Emily’s craft engaged the humans around her like the carpenter embraces the wood he forms.  Even the ones she labored for: “Had we the art of boards — he’d hire us”. Her carpentry was poetry. She built with the things she knew, words. That gift was a compulsion, hardly shared, let alone leveraging any profit.

For me, as an architect, the act of making is a compulsion as well. But the making is not about what is made, the outcome that justifies the effort. The act of creation itself is the essence of beauty for some of us. The built end of architecture is the small dessert after the joy of cooking cuisine — invented with the ingredients we have, with a group that is made and ends upon dinner. Emily had nothing to do with Thoreau or Emerson and the salons of the literati — but her writing has meant as any other figure of her era. My motivations to help make things are not designed with an eye toward the approval of the subculture of architecture.

I did not pick a destiny, nor did Emily. It was picked for us. Had the values of the wider culture been the tools of my building a career, I would have made a comfortable, profitable life. Emily, too, would have married well, had children, been integrated into the society. But we do what we are given to do.

The commonplace truth of simply being who you already were, using the world to fulfill the mission, means that the world does not determine you. Being what God has given you uses the world to be who God made. As Emily knew firsthand, answering to a higher calling may mean solitude or persecution. It is a fraught and lonely path, but not the choice of some of us. I do not have a choice. Neither did Emily.

The Bench, where we had toiled —
Against the Man — persuaded —
We — Temples build — I said —

So Emily built Temples of words in her room, alone. Mostly shared with herself and God. She, we, could be said to be the agents of our own judgment, the reapers of our creation. But the opposite is true. It is easier to act than listen: Emily, and I, try to hear what God has provided — in us, in the world He made.

But in the end, when we pray to God, we are left with ourselves. We can pretend to control this life, or we can try to have the faith we already have. We can just be who we are. Or as the apostle Paul wrote, “I am what I am by the grace of God” (1 Cor 15:10). For me my morning dates with Emily help me see that we do not build ourselves — we are given what we make of life.

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