Ash Wednesday

    If you are like me then you are usually trying to figure out exactly what you are going to do for Lent right about now. Sometimes we find ourselves wondering about what our Lenten Penance should be weeks after the ashes on our foreheads have been washed off. It seems so natural to hold off on picking out how we will suffer for forty days. Oh how we think we suffer too, giving up Facebook, sweets, or television. Being in Louisiana has conditioned me to think at some level that Penance just means we don't eat burgers or steak on Fridays but  mountains of fried catfish and boiled crawfish are somehow a suffering to be offered up. 

"Remember that you are dust and unto dust you shall return" the priest says as he traces the symbol of the cross on our foreheads with ash. Ash that I will someday be. This body will wither away. No amount of sit-ups can keep it from happening. There is no bargain I can strike to hold off death. Lent is a time to remember this and to remember that we must always be vigilant of the state of our souls. Lent is a time to stretch and move and see what we are made of spiritually.

For Lent I want to make myself uncomfortable. I want to make challenges and have friends/family/a spouse who hold me accountable to them! If we are constantly in the comfort zone and we do not test our limits then how can we grow? The physical trainer will tell you this of your body, the therapist will tell it to you of your mind, why do we tend to neglect it of the spirit? 

What Penance means to me is the chance to exercise my soul (and maybe exorcise as well). Penance helps us to break the heavy chains of sin, and find within us deeper love. This love will move us to change the world.

As we go into Lent, let us be like the small humble hobbits, carrying the One Ring across the ashen land of Mordor. We are Frodo, weighted down and heartbroken. We struggle and crawl through the muck, and fall time and time again. When at last we fall and cannot lift ourselves with our own strength, the Grace of God steps in and carries us. Just as Sam carried Frodo, God will see our hearts through to the end, even if our bodies fail us.

 As we move through Lent let our focus move from being the carrier of the burden to carrying the burden of others as well. Be like Sam. We cannot carry another's burdens, but sometimes we can, with the help of God's love and grace, make the weight easier to bare. Remind each other, we are not alone in the desert. We will not suffer alone just as we will not be victorious alone.