This past fall, it became undeniable that two of my kids and I were spiritually restless. We embarked on an open-ended journey together over several months that led to our family attending Ash Wednesday service at a church that’s become familiar to us.
Although I’ve been culturally aware of the season of Lent throughout my life, I haven’t participated in it from my heart. The way I understood Lent this year made me want to fully engage in it, and share it with you (whether you know more about it than me, or less). At the Ash Wednesday service, the Pastor said,
“Our faith does not shield us from death, in fact it walks us toward it. Ash Wednesday is the church’s annual invitation for humans to stop pretending, to stop pretending that we have our lives all under control but to lay down that exhausting fiction that we are perfect. ‘From dust you have come and to dust you shall return’ we say on Ash Wednesday and this is not a curse spoken over us, it is the truest thing a person can say to you all year. It’s not to fill us with dread but to create room in us for the kind of trust that only comes when we surrender and let go of our grip on our lives. This is where humility is born, not in self-deprecation but in the quiet, honest acknowledgement of what we are and what we are not. We are beloved creatures, finite, held and loved by God. Our futures are not our own, not ours to fully own, and in this surrender of control we are strangely set free of our fear.”
There’s been a significant decline of U.S. religious service attendance over the last 50-60 years across all denominations. We have more “nones” than ever in the U.S., and why not? It’s complicated to make a case for organized religion. I work with people who’ve experienced trauma in their former religious homes, and there is a lot of “ick” in our cultural Christianity. And, and, and – how gorgeous is what the Pastor said?
This is my case for organized religion – this counter-cultural, anti-establishment spot is where we need the church. Very little else in our culture wants to remind us that no matter how much money we have, what longevity program we buy into, or how “young” we look – we are going to die. Very little else in our culture wants us to trust ourselves, to know that we experience more gorgeous messy Real life if we loosen our grip – that maybe living this way is the entire point. Those reminders don’t sell supplements and they certainly don’t keep us in line, trying to be perfect enough to be loved.
Our family’s north star for Lent has been deciding what we can release or start to notice that gets us closer to God. On the contemplative side, my prayer has been, “God make me freer to love.” On the action side, it has looked like actually taking – not just saying I’m going to take – a tech Sabbath. That means I’m not reading news or social media on Saturdays. And yet the world still turns. Further, on weekdays, I set a one-hour timer and that’s my news and social media allotment to spend through the day. It has freed me, and brought me immediately closer to God by creating time in my day and space in my head to focus on more important things than the ever-refilling buckets that are news and social media.
One of my kids decided to keep a daily journal of what holy things she notices. With permission, here is a page:
You certainly don’t have to participate in the season of Lent, but this is an invitation to get closer to God, whatever that might mean to you. A Muhammad Ali quote that lives within me is, “Truly great people in history never wanted to be great for themselves. All they wanted was a chance to do good for others and be close to God.” Perhaps doing good for others might bring you closer to God – my guess is that if you take the time, you would notice ways that this is already happening in your life.
There is so much these days that demands our attention, so much that seeks to distract us from the truth that we are finite, rare, and impossibly beautiful just as we are. Write me and tell me what helps you feel closer to your concept of God/Love/Source. Maybe saying it to another person will help you remember to seek it out just a bit more.
