I was speaking to a friend recently about the season of Lent and, in particular, Ash Wednesday.  My friend was saying that she always felt that Ash Wednesday was rather depressing, especially the imposition of the ashes when the words “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return” are spoken.  The words, she explained, did serve to remind her to take each day as a gift to be lived fully, but the stark reminder of human mortality was much less appreciated.

Indeed, the Lenten journey is partially intended for us to consider our human frailty and faults so as to spur us on to repentance and more abundant living.  Further, there is a somewhat urgent nature to Lent, as if to remind us that our days are numbered so we had better get with the program.  But at the end of the day, Lent is much more about life than death.  If it is about challenging us to let our old selfish ways die, it is also about encouraging us to see and receive the new life that God intends for us.

I am a big fan of the poet David Whyte.  He wrote a poem, aptly entitled The Journey, that expresses much more eloquently what I am trying to say.

Above the mountains

the geese turn into

the light again

Painting their

black silhouettes

on an open sky.

Sometimes everything

has to be

inscribed across

the heavens

so you can find

the one line

already written

inside you.

Sometimes it takes

a great sky

to find that

first, bright

and indescribable

wedge of freedom

in your own heart.

Sometimes with

the bones of the black

sticks left when the fire

has gone out

someone has written

something new

in the ashes of your life.

You are not leaving.

Even as the light fades quickly now,

you are arriving.

Yes, all of us experience little deaths in our lives: failures, disappointments, unrealized dreams, broken relationships. And all of this ultimately leads to the death of our physical bodies.  Part of the Lenten Journey is an acknowledgement of this hard truth.  But there is a Truth beyond this truth.  There is Good News beyond the bad news.  There is a Life beyond death and a tenacious love that fiercely and persistently works to free us and rebirth us.  Yes, there are ashes in our lives, but the God of all Love and Life, the God made manifest in Christ Jesus, is eternally writing new stories into those ashes and bringing about the miracle of resurrection.  And this is the other part of the Lenten Journey, a realization that “You are not leaving.  Even as the light fades quickly now, you are arriving.”

~Father Art