We begin the journey. The length of the season of Lent is 40 days, but since the Sundays are not counted, it is really 46 days until Easter. Actually when one has been around as many years as I, 46 days doesn’t seem very long. The name of the season that we use refers to the lengthening of days that occurs in the Northern hemisphere in the spring. In German (lenz) and Dutch (lente) the name of the season in the Christian calendar is the same as the name of the season in the secular calendar. Lent simply means “spring.”

It is different for us, even though we do witness many of the miracles of spring rebirth during the season. The old names for the season, quadragesmia (Latin) might be more appropriate. It refers to the 40 days of the season, and is preserved in the modern language, Spanish (Cuaresma), though in many Spanish speaking countries the season is referred to as “beloved days.” I’m not sure that I am quite ready to call the season “beloved,” thought I do understand the term. “Difficult,” comes to mind. The season is an ideological struggle.

We humans were created to love life. In the current vernacular, we are “hard wired” to find our joy in living. We are happier, healthier and live longer when we embrace life. Thinking about our mortality and death is not in our nature. But if we pretend that we will never die, we become unmoored from reality.

It isn’t that difficult. The simple truth is that we will all one day die from this life. And along the road to our own deaths, we will experience the deaths of others. We experience grief, and as the years go by, we collect various experiences until grief becomes a constant companion in our life’s journey. This does not change the truth that we love life. It does not mean that we spend all of our days with morbid thoughts. But when we are honest, we cannot escape the reality of death and loss and grief as normal parts of our human experience.

We have this formal season within the church to remind us of this reality. More importantly, we have this season to help us practice and prepare for the coming reality. Because we will all know grief, because we cannot escape our mortality, it makes sense to prepare in the ways that we are able.

There are three practices at the core of our tradition for this season: prayer, fasting and giving. They are all practices of the basic principles of Biblical justice. Prayer is offering justice to God. Spending time with the creator, listening for God’s direction and possibility for our lives is simply rendering to God what belongs to God all along. All of our time comes from God. Allocating time for prayer is a simple matter of justice with God.

Fasting is the practice of being just with ourselves. It is a discipline that I am still learning. Over many years I developed habits that were not good for my health. I added pounds that I did not need. I ate things that were not good for me. I ignored the cost and consequences by not giving enough time to think about my habits. During Lent, we are invited to think carefully about our bodies and how we sustain them. Despite common understandings that fasting is about denying ourselves pleasure, fasting offers the opportunity to focus not so much on what is not consumed as to be careful about what is consumed. I have often said to physicians and others that we are not overweight because of a lack of information. Losing weight is not a matter of learning more facts. Learning to eat the right amount of food is a spiritual discipline.

Giving is the practice of being just with our neighbors. The distribution of wealth is never completely fair. A quick walk down the streets of our town and a peek under the bridges will reveal that there are some people who have more and others who have less. But for much of our lives, we think that what we have is the product of our own virtue. “I earned this.” “I deserve it.” Lent invites us to understand that the abundance we have is a product of the accident of birth as much as it is the result of hard work. Along with privilege comes the opportunity to share. And sharing is not a product of wealth. We often make that mistake. We think, “When I have more, I will share.” “If I won the lottery, I would give.” The truth is that no matter what we have or what we lack, we are able to share. I once gave $20 to a woman who was fleeing domestic violence. She had a shopping bag with some clothes, two daughters, and a bus ticket to a distant city where her family lived. When I found that she had no cash at all, I gave her some of mine so that she could buy food for her daughters along the way. She went into the bus station, got change for the $20 and returned $2 to me as a tithe to the church – “to help others.” I’ve never been as broke as that woman, and she found a way to be generous. Surely I can be generous as well.

It is, then, a season of opportunity and a season of justice. We are given the blessing of practicing for hard times that we will one day face. We are given the blessing of practicing justice with God, justice with ourselves, and justice with our neighbors.

I’ve never been much for overtly public displays of faith. I have no need to show the ashes on my forehead to others. But I have learned that it is not about what I show, but rather about what I receive. I do need to receive the ashes with their gentle reminder: “From dust you have come. To dust you will return.”

Between dust and dust we are given the opportunity of life. This season we enter is an invitation to embrace that life even more fully.

Copyright © 2013 by Ted Huffman. I wrote this. If you want to copy it, please ask for permission. There is a contact me button at the bottom of this page. If you want to share my blog a friend, please direct your friend to my web site.