My Second Lent

So I was devouring sausages on the way to the Lent service today. The night before, the place where I worked had a networking/mardi gras party, which meant that the spoils of fat Tuesday were available in the office kitchen. Someone had to eat them before they went bad. The office Catholics were all fasting meat, and, after putting together a budget, I'll take all the free meals I can get. (did I mention the crab cakes were particularly excellent?)

Perhaps that's an indication of just how new I am to Lent. I was raised in a "lower-church" protestant tradition, where we limboed under the church Calendar, with its fasts and feasts (pausing, though, for Christmas, Easter and a wonderful "Harvest Party" every Halloween) and everything else that was not necessary for salvation and morality. And while I say that tongue-in-cheek, I don't disapprove either. Tradition has meant death to so many people that it us understadable why they want to focus on the core of God's love in Jesus Christ.

In the Metro, I saw all the catholics and "high church" protestants with ashes on their foreheads. I wondered if I would get ashes on my forehead. I wasn't entirely sure of their significants, other than perhaps harkening our Jewish forefathers who would mourn under sack-cloth and ashes (everyone still was dressed in conservative, Washington business atire, so no sack-cloth), but it seemed like a cool thing. It's interesting wanting to put a mark on your forehead for stylistic reasons (would you prefer a thumb-print or a cross?). I guess it's just as random as a neck-tie.

At a coffee shop with free wireless, I sat down with a friend of mine to wash down the party favors with fizzy water out of a glass bottle. Then we walked to church.

The sign on the door of the church instructed us to enter silently. It's a heavy thing to walk into a crowded room that is completely silent. One becomes somber and self-conscious. Self-conscious because anything could be heard - a hastily dropped bag, a text message or some misplaced gas would echo from stained glass window to stained glass window, causing a domino effect of snickers and coughs, disturbing the penitent attitude of 200 worshipers. Somber, because it was a dark church with no mood music. Somber, because of the grave way Pastor Dan approached the podium to say his opening words. Somber, because it was dark.

I intended to be more of an observer, this my first Lent. It was the first Lent for many of the young, upwardly mobile Evangelicals who attend my church. Pastor Dan sent out helpful sheet on the meaning of Lent. It's more than giving up chocolate, alcohol, meat or lunch (in the case of my Lutheran office-mate). It's a time of self-examination and repentance before the joy of Easter.

Now, I've nothing against having a special time for self-examination. However, lack of introspection cannot be found among my many flaws. This blog probably proves it. I'm neurotic enough; do I really need a season of neurosis before I get my Easter basket? My belly-button is thuroughly examined, thank you.

Yet, I want an opened mind. Before I entered the silence, I felt nothing but curiosity and the desire to follow the "ashes on the forehead" trend. I told God that if he wanted to speak to me, I'd listen. Me and my big mouth.

A Lent service is designed to bring the open-hearted to their knees. This one was effective. From the invitation to worship to the closing hymn, we reflected on sin and brokenness. I learned the ashes on my forehead, which I did receive in the form of a smeared, silver cross, were meant to remind us of what God told Adam after he sinned. From dust we were made, and from dust we were returned. Sin brought mortality, eternity completely outside of divine happiness. Sadness, anger and more sin. Darfur, Krakow, Hitler, Nero, you and me. Lent is a time when we experience some of the same grimness God feels as we flee his love, as we fail to trust, as we fail to love others, the poor and needy in particular, as we fail to forgive and use others for our selfish purposes.

Two years ago I was broken open, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. It cost me my dream job, what seemed to be my calling, in a country I love. It cost me deep friendships and a beautiful relationship. I failed to trust, because I could not. I was mentally unable to. My mind was overworked and tired, and I was lost. I went home to reboot and rebuild.

I've since put my life together. I am surrounded by beautiful people of God. In my work, I help people learn things they would not have known otherwise. I am in a fascinating, historical and cultural city. And somehow I trust. I trust God. Not very well, as you probably have observed, but I trust him, deeply and beautifully. This evening, as we were silently receiving the ashes, I saw my dark time as a Lent. It was a season of anguish, of repentance, of learning to trust. It was dark. Yet God was light, waiting, searching and loving.

Psalm 51, David's Psalm of repentance, has a beautiful line, one I understand more deeply now. "Let the bones you have broken rejoice." Sin and life may break us, but we don't end in brokenness. We end rejoicing. I don't fully understand what caused my darkness. Yet afterwards, I trust deeply. I learn to trust still. I look down and see that I still have a heart, I have a mission. I still have relationships. I still need to repent daily. I still need to grow. Yet God has been looking the whole time. Lent, it seems, is less about introspection and fasting - those are only means to an end. Lent is about repentance. It's about the gravity of what Jesus did for us on the cross. It's about the heavy sort of Joy that comes with death defeated, with the thought that nothing and no one and no situation is irredeemable.

I've wondered if I should fast something these next 40 days. I could give up Alcohol, meat or television and be better for it. I could spend my Saturdays helping the poor, which would be better still. I asked God about this too.

While I feel a neurotic desire to give up some of these comforts - maybe I will in the end - I believe this Lent is about moving forward. It's about remembering, in awe, of where God has brought me. It's about repenting of my sin. It's about being brave enough to pray to God and ask the question that has scared me for two years. "What's next?"

If you're still with me, bless you for reading my long ramblings. We closed to a beautiful hymn (which had the same tune as "O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus," another hymn I love) called "Through the Night of Doubt and Sorrow." I want to close with it as well.

Through the night of doubt and sorrow
Onward goes the pilgrim band
singing songs of expectation
marching to the promised land
Clear before us through the darkness
gleams and burns the guiding light
trusting God we march together
stepping fearless through the night

One the light of God's own presence
o'er his ransomed people shed
chasing far the gloom and terror
brightening all the path we tread
one the object of our journey
one the faith which never tires
one the earnest looking forward
one the hope our God inspires

Onward, therefore, all ye pilgrims,
onward with the cross our aid
bear its shame, and fight its battle
till we rest beneath its shade
soon shall come the great awaking
soon the rending of the tomb
then the scattering of all shadows
and the end of toil and gloom