Column for Feb.24

We may have recovered from Mardi Gras by now; the ashes are washed off foreheads ( in my case one need a paint brush to cover it), so we are fully into the season of Lent. I was raised Roman Catholic, so I associate the season with “giving something up for Lent.” One of the few joys of facebook is that it reconnects us with people from our past. I was reminded by a grade school friend how we had a difficult debate if BBQ potato chips could be eaten on Friday since the name implied meat.

The name, Lent, comes from the season itself. The word is drawn from spring in Old English, as it moves toward Easter. It may be related to a German word, to lengthen, to see precious daylight making longer days after the solstice. In a bow to my baby boom generation, allergic as it is to any word remotely concerned with sacrifice, permit me to suggest that we use that natural image to approach the spiritual season from a different angle.

Think of this time as preparing and planting in your spiritual garden. Just as this is the time to start getting a garden ready for planting, look at this as a time of preparation. Look at yourself and start selecting from a spiritual seed catalog those blossoms that you would like to see in your life. (I may need to do a spiritual inventory to find out why I consistently mistype the word, spiritual).

Next, I walk a bit of a tightrope. The usual message from the church is that we need to keep do more, more across the board to help the vast array of crying need we encounter. It may be a response, again, to baby boomers, as one of the generation’s signal desires is that they are not to be ever told they could be wrong, and heaven forfend if we use the word sin to describe an attitude or action,. To be fair, the latter means that it should never be used toward them, but it is fine to use it toward others, with whom they may disagree on important preferences such as clothing or musical styles. I would suggest that we consider during the Lenten season to do more of a good thing we already do, just by a little, perhaps. Consider strengthening an existing virtue and be grateful for its presence in life. If you have the gift of patience, note it and be pleased that you can apply it in a variety of situations. I just got off the phone with someone who degraded a gift they have. In Lent, we can appreciate a virtue and be grateful for its presence in our lives.

Finally, I will cheat a bit a refer to our Ash Wednesday sermon here at first Presbyterian. Yes, the ashes remind us of our mortality. that does not mean a morbid preoccupation with death. It is a mark of humility. It reminds us of our common human nature, frail as it is. it reminds us that we are mortal, therefore vulnerable to all sorts of assaults. To be humble is to learn to accept human limitations. Humility is not being humiliated or to humble others. Years ago, the great theologian Paul Tillich preached a sermon, You Are Accepted. Tillich translated the word justification into a more familiar one, acceptance. Humility is born from realizing that we are accepted by God. With all of our faults, we are good enough to be in relationship with God, to receive the love of god. In that light, it is time to give up the notion that we do not measure up to some abstract standard and accept ourselves. that could grow into the greatest Lenten gift.