from dust to dust

it's ash wednesday. which means it's the start of lent.

lent has been my favorite time of the year for about 4 years now. basically since i found out lent existed.

this is partially because easter is my favorite day of the whole year. i didnt know what easter was until i was 18. i thought it only had to do with bunnies and kites and egg hunts. when i found out what it was really about, it became so profoundly significant.

now i have grown to love lent and easter because it represents death and resurrection. it's a liturgical season, built into this transcendent rhythm, that embodies the necessary death requisite of true birth (life).

i love that lent is an intentional period of mourning. partially because i find myself in times of mourning around this time of year. partially because it is so important to acknowledge our frailty: from dust we were made, to dust we shall return. this year feels slightly different. not so obvious what's wrong. a little more distracted than usual. yet, very very aware of my frailty.

i always want to enter so deep into the darkness of this time of fasting, but feel incapable due to distraction or the fact that i cant quite point out what i need to confess (disconcerting in its own right).

this year im going to try and ease the pressure. focus on how fragile i am (which is not terribly difficult these days). it's okay if it's not a time of mourning. strange i should have to reassure myself of that.

but the real reason i love lent, as a way to prepare for easter, is that all things are redeemable.

i learned this once, and it's never really left me. i find myself forgetting to live in that reality. i put a lot of pressure on my decisions - thinking that if i make the "wrong" decision...well...who knows what i think. but i certainly think there will be terrible consequences. irrevocable consequences. but it's not true. not only can all pain be healed. but all things are redeemable. all things. the minute and the important.

i need to know this now more than ever. i need not be paralyzed by this fear.

i shall be focusing on that this lent.


And God said / Shall these bones live? shall these / Bones live?

[TS Eliot's Ash Wednesday]