Preparing for Lent

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and I want to take a moment to reflect on what that means, for me, but also for us as [what I see as] the Church in general.

Tomorrow we enter the desert with Jesus, on a forty-day pilgrimage toward the resurrection. We enter the desert to fast, to be tempted, to purify ourselves, to prepare.

What are you going to enter the desert with?

Today, I'm preparing to fast tomorrow. I had a good breakfast and have plans for good, healthy lunch and dinner. Partly this prepares me because it means if I eat three meals in the caf tomorrow I won't have enough meals for the rest of the week. Partly, this prepares me in that it nourishes me for the fasting tomorrow. I'm filling my canteen for the journey.

I'm also spending a good deal of today in physical preparation, outside my body. I'm cleaning and organizing my room, reorganizing my music lockers, and doing laundry. I'm finishing up paperwork and organizing and simplifying my to-do list. I'm simplifying my backpack for the journey.

Tomorrow we don our ashes and begin our trip. What will we take with us into the desert? What is our desert?

People often give something up for lent. They give up sweets, recreational computer use, watching television. Or they add something of importance to their lives: free reading time, daily devotionals, lima beans. My lenten journey this year is going to be somewhat different, and I hope to come out the other side carrying with me what I have learned. I have a list of twenty-some small tasks. For the most part, these are little things ("wake up early enough to wash my face every morning"), little things that I want to add (or remove) to my lifestyle. Some are daily ("practice!"), some are weekly ("laundry"), some are general, some are specific, but I've divided up the list into small components, and will add one every other day-ish. A big task, perhaps, but I'm about to enter the Real World, and I want to enter it to the fullest of my potential.

What is your desert going to be? What are you going to enter it with? I know couples or groups of friends that are going to enter lent together. Together they are going to do daily devotionals, give up sweets, whatever.

Isn't that what we, as Church, do anyway? We enter lent together. We no longer don ashes in the privacy of our homes and wear them into public. We recieve ashes in the public of the sanctuary and walk home with them. We don our shame, our sin, opur humanity, together as one people and take our shame into the world beyond.

Whatever you take with you into the desert, remember that you do not take it alone. For Christ is in the desert already, waiting for us.


Also, remember to close your eyes when you're being ash-ed. Keeps it from getting in your eyes.