Lent is here again. This is the third year in the row I’ve actively practiced it. Every year I walk into Lent with certain expectations. But then, as I intentionally turn down the noise of my life, I’m always surprised at what emerges.
I have yet to see what will emerge this time around, but so far it hasn’t been the sense of peace and quiet I expected. Instead I’m bombarded with images and sounds of the nightmare my Japanese brothers and sisters are living in across the ocean.
One of the key themes of Lent is mortality. The Resurrection has power and inspires joy because it throws hope in the face of death. Easter needs death to really be Easter. I’m feeling the weight of that right now. Hundreds or thousands of people died yesterday when the earth moved. A nuclear reactor threatens to meltdown. Cancer quietly snuck in and took my beautiful grandpa 5 years ago. My beloved friend’s car flipped 10 years ago, taking his life. My moment will come, or worse, that moment will come for people I love. There are beautiful, poetic, theologically correct ways to speak about death and hope. But the reality is – it’s ugly and visceral and shocks and hurts.
I haven’t made peace with death yet. But Henri Nouwen says that “the season of Lent, during which winter and spring struggle with each other for dominance, helps us in a special way to cry out for God’s mercy.” These 40 days are a conversion process, and they begin with a turning. None of walks into this truly ready or finished or polished. We walk in rusty and distracted. But as I turn the volume down, I am struck with my need for God’s mercy, and I cry out for it.
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