This week marks the beginning of Lent in the Christian tradition. Ash Wednesday begins a 40-day period leading up to Good Friday and Easter. It is a time of preparation, reflection and making space for what is coming.

The making space part is especially speaking to me this year. I don’t know about you but I find my own life full of checking email and looking at my Youtube feed. There’s a paradox here–I’m wanting space even as I all-too-frequently turn on my phone to check for updates when that desired spare moment comes. I long for space and yet sometimes that space can be hard to find. 

I seem to hear myself note a lot these days just how much there is to hold. There’s so much cruelty and pettiness in the world right now that it is hard to take it all in.

I believe part of the spiritual life is to bear witness to the life we have been given, to the life around us. Even when it may be we can’t do a whole lot we at least can do our best to show up and to bear witness.

So how does all of this connect to Lent? If you grew up Catholic in particular you likely remember Lent as the time when you gave up something like chocolate or something else you really enjoy. By giving up something,by suffering, if you will–you got a little closer to Jesus and the suffering he would experience on the cross.

There are many words to be written about the suffering piece. It is so present in our world. But perhaps another perspective would be to focus on simply making space. It is about getting rid of some of the clutter and perhaps making a little more space for the spirit to enter. Making space to pay attention and to notice. Making space to be present to our own suffering and the suffering of the world. Making space for all the joy and beauty that is around us, if we can just notice. 

In these days when we watch for signs of spring emerging out of the winter cold, so may this Lenten season offer an unfolding for us. In that spirit, here is one of my favorite David Whyte poems that I think speaks to this season:

The Journey

Above the mountains
the Geese turn into
the light again
Painting their
black silhouettes
on an open sky.
Sometimes everything
has to be
enscribed across
the heavens
so you can find
the one line
already written
inside you.
Sometimes it takes
a great sky
to find that
Small, bright
and indescribable
wedge of freedom
in your own heart.
Sometimes with
the bones of the black
sticks left when the fire
has gone out
Someone has written
something new
in the ashes
of your life.
You are not leaving
you are arriving.

—

What if we looked at every day as an invitation? To make a little more space. To notice a little more. We live in times that ask much of us. We are asked to be open to what the spirit might be calling us to do—and then to live and move out of that place. May each of us find ourselves arriving where it is we need to be. 

Love and Blessings. 

Rev. Tom