It's Ash Wednesday, and I'm hardly coming out of the fog of Interim, sickness, and the start of the new semester. Part of me feels like I've been stuck in the gray for a while, so the prospect of ashes and dust seem like more of the same--the ordinary--than the exceptional.
But the rhythm of the church year reminds me that the dimness of Lent, beginning with the shadowy reminders of mortality and sin, is not so much dimness after all, but clarity. Lent, the term in itself, actually is rooted in spring, rather than ashes or death. And what is spring but the growing light, the building warmth, and the hope of resurrection.
The fast of Lent is, perhaps, then a time to concentrate on the dimness of ordinary experience that so often overwhelms us in order to see more clearly the hope that is in us.
Already I've noticed that supper around our kitchen table is lighter. We sit in darkness no longer but, instead, watch the sun set in a bright evening sky. By the end of Lent, the sun won't go down until quite late in the evening (thanks to the wonders, such as they are, of daylight savings).
In my observations of Lent, I've worked through a number of different fasts in preparation for the feast of Easter, but I'm still not sure what my fast will be this year. Perhaps to spend more time outside in the growing light.
Good fasting to you all. Remember that you are from dust. And beloved.
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