“There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.”
-Howard Thurman

I have often wished that our liberal religious tradition included Mardi Gras…Carnival. Other cultures embrace that celebration with gusto but it was never been seen as part of our Puritan derived, more somber spirituality. Those Puritan religious ancestors did not even really approve of the celebration of Christmas.

We are however comfortable with the language of wilderness and struggle, despite our privilege.

Those who are attuned to the Christian liturgical calendar know that we passed Ash Wednesday yesterday and, today, Lent begins. This period of 40 days before Easter is a period of self-reflection and repentence when believers are asked to “turn” their lives and ready themselves for the mystery and miracle of rebirth at Easter.

Easter is hard for most Unitarian Universalists to embrace, save as a celebration of spring. The disciplines of Lent and the invitation to inward preparation are even more challenging.

I believe that the Lenten metaphors can speak, however, to Unitarian Universalists.

The 40 days of Lent are modeled on the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness, wrestling with Satan if you hear the story literally, or with his inner demons if you hear it as metaphor. We all have inner demons. We all have the need for forgiveness and the need to forgive. Somehow, we all also need the rebirth that is promised to come.

Our sanctuary will be crowded on Easter morning, not because of specific claims about an itinerant preacher’s rise from the dead, but because we are all in need of rebirth as we wrestle with our own demons and strive to live lives of integrity and joy.

There may be wisdom in the Lenten season for us if we open ourselves to it.

This poem by Nancy Shaffer spoke to me this morning as I centered on the work of this season:

This making of a whole self takes
such a very long time: pieces are not
sequential nor our supplies.

We work here, then there,
hold up tattered fabric to the light,
sew past dark, intent. Use all our
thread.

Sleeves may come before length;
buttons, before a rounded neck.

We sew at what most needs us,
and as it asks, sew again.

The self is not one thing, once made,
unaltered. Not midnight task alone,
not after other work.

It’s everything we come upon, make ours:
all this fitting of what-once-was and
has-become.

A weekly podcast during the Lenten season. You can find it by clicking HERE.

Blessings,

Bill