Little Deaths and Resurrections

What is Lent all about anyway? Why do we “give things up?" What’s with the fish? Why do we throw this huge slow-down into the year, just when spring is beginning to show its little green head from the soil? Why do we always have to talk about death?

Good questions.

Questions for which I don’t have ready answers. Google can help with some of them I suppose. And this year, after a long and difficult winter, it is perhaps doubly exasperating to have a late Easter -- which drags Lent on WELL into April.

Last week’s blog by Jen is so eloquent. She is clear about what she likes about Lent. I fear I am not so clear, but lately I have been finding some resonance in the idea that life is a series of little deaths and resurrections. I am more aware of my own anyway. 

Here are some:

The death of my prejudicial ideas about people who were different than me when I went into the “big city” for college and met folks of all ethnicities, gender, sexual orientations and religions. The more I spoke with them the more I embraced the idea that we are all children of God and are all unique conduits for God’s love.

The death of my need to define myself by my job title or my annual salary when I chucked them both to start over after hitting burnout. I discovered I didn’t need the externals to define myself and found what mattered most to me was not achievable by title or money.

The death of my belief that I was invincible when my body turned against me and left me in a hospital for a week with no discernable cause. I was a little more humble and a little more careful in how I pushed myself.

There have been a few more deaths and resurrections along the way as well, along with the knowledge that there are some things that I …… perhaps need to work on killing! There are still some rough edges on the ego that could die. There is a rush to judgment that could be jettisoned. And more…

Every Lent, I feel challenged to set down and walk away from the burdens that weigh me down and to let them die at the foot of the cross.  So I embrace the Lenten journey, not so much to deny myself, but to defy my ‘self’ and resurrect more of the love of God into my daily life.

Paul S.