Lent is upon us, dawning tomorrow morning like a slow sunrise. What will come to light for many is that now’s the time to let go, step back, even relinquish. Now restraint leads us, as if from behind, to a new destination.
The Lenten Season begins with Ash Wednesday. A smear of oil and ash across the forehead to remind us of fragility and yet resurrected possibility, too. It’s a season for holding ambiguity and contradictions; less to be more, emptiness to contemplate fullness, even death to welcome life.
I’ve always found it to be a time of owning my fragile and fractured ways. Laying them out, saying, ‘here they are, my struggles in this life, in this body, in the place.’ Something about moving out of the shadows of denial begins a gradual healing. No argument, no defense or trying to justify why I limp this way or that. Just an honest statement in God’s company about my own feeble attempts at following His way.
Coming into Lent with a raw awareness of where I stand, I walk the days strangely at peace. I’ve never felt it morose. There’s goodness in being known in your weakness and accepted nonetheless. And that’s much of what I sense in the lenten weeks – acceptance. I somehow embody the truth that in my humanness I am both broken and beloved. God’s so near even as I confess my cracks and chips. I journey through lent overwhelmed by this wide and welcoming Love that does not ride on my righteousness at all. In my human frame, I’m known and embraced.
But the fasting does work on me, kneading me so I can rise. The days spent without unlock new doors and disarm intimate vices, empowering me to celebrate Easter as one risen from dire circumstances and hurtful habits. I participate in the resurrection truth, a foretaste of what is to come.
My soul craves Lent. I hunger for the quiet and the closeness, the broken and belovedness of it all. I’m ready for the imposition of ashes tomorrow, when the morning’s still cool and barely lit.
Here are some other thoughts on Lent, some by me and some by others:
About Lent, Ash Wednesday and what to say about the ash cross by Brian Zahnd.
On Fat Tuesday & Thin Wednesday by Shane Claiborne.
40 Ideas for Lent by Rachel Held Evans.
A description of Ash Wednesday by Mark Roberts.
Thoughts on fasting during Lent by Scot McKnight
My thoughts on fasting from SheLoves Magazine.
My experience of Lent one odd year in particular.
How do you experience Lent?
Holy crap, can you write, woman!! Wow, this is glorious. Thank you so much. “kneading me so I can rise???” Give me a break. Printing this for my little collection of ideas before I give the meditation at our service tomorrow night. Thank you!
Beautiful. You somehow expressed the thoughts I didn’t even know I had about Lent – thank you!
Beautiful writing. Lent is important to me, too, for reasons that are hard to articulate without a bit of poetry, as you have done here.
“I’ve always found it to be a time of owning my fragile and fractured ways. Laying them out, saying, ‘here they are, my struggles in this life, in this body, in the place.’ Something about moving out of the shadows of denial begins a gradual healing. No argument, no defense or trying to justify why I limp this way or that. Just an honest statement in God’s company about my own feeble attempts at following His way.”
It’s remarkable, Kelley, that you only started blogging awhile ago. This is a beautiful expression of our condition. Time for Lent.