On the three-hour journey to travel four miles home yesterday amidst the chaos of the second-largest snowfall on record in Portland, on the first day of the Lenten Season, I was reminded that Lent is a journey of surrender. The three leading practices of this season – prayer, fasting, and charity – are meant to open space to experience the divine and to follow where that leads us. Instead, we too often practice the journey of Lent as an exercise in willpower

This may be in part because of the tendency to focus on fasting over prayer and charity. Prayer is about our connection to what is holy in and beyond ourselves. Charity is about our connection to others in the human family. The three Lenten practices of fasting, prayer, and charity when taken together connect us to our longing to be in right relationship with ourselves, with God/a Spirit of Love, and with all of humanity.

Fasting can be a transformative practice but taken on its own we risk placing ourselves at the center of the Lenten journey. It becomes a journey of how strong willed we can be or how good we are at giving up chocolate, alcohol, checking our social media, or whatever we are abstaining from. It can be reduced to bragging rights or mistaken for an invitation to perfection. If you break the fast one day, you may even give up entirely on the forty-day path. Fasting is about giving up what distracts you from the habits and the relationships that lead to more abundant life. How many days you resist temptation successfully is less important than whether or not your letting go of a habit has led you towards right relations and towards renewal of your spirit.

So, today on the second day of Lent, as many of us are stuck at home and prevented from some or maybe even all of our plans by the snow and ice, let us remember, the prophet Jesus says, “Thy will be done,” and not “My will be done.” Let us have the courage to let go of the illusion of being in control all the time. We are not all powerful. We are not without power either. We co-create our destiny with others, with twists of fate, with synchronicity, and more.

Let us acknowledge that the world conspires with us and against us at times, and we are capable and creative and can move forward anyway even if it takes longer, even if we must chart a whole new course. Let us acknowledge that we will also get in our own way at times and will need to overcome the habits that hold us back.

Lent invites us to acknowledge we occasionally miss the mark that we have set for ourselves, or others have set for us, and to remember that we are none of us alone in our foibles and none of us alone in our ability to do better. The practices of this season illuminate a path of growth inward, upward, and outward that invites us to stretch ever onward towards love. May we learn how to surrender to the lessons of that healing and hopeful journey.

In faith,

Rev. Alison