Little deaths

I can't wait to eat my pancakes tonight. It is Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, Shrove Tuesday - call it what you will, eat how you please. Have a little fun, for Lent comes tomorrow.

And come it does - Lent, which many in the Christian tradition dread. It is filled with dark colors and dark stories. Lent examines the shadow side of life, begging us to turn over rocks to see what lies beneath. There is dirty work to be done.

But every year I feel a thrill of beckoning into Lent. A shadow whisper inviting me into the less than cheery side of pop-happy faith. Into something more meaningful, more robust, more filled with life. I no longer see Lent as the drab march into "no-fun land." Nor do I see it as a time to give something up, at least not in terms of a physical no-no. Lent offers something else to me now. There isn't just darkness to be found - there is something richer, more layered, more complicated.

Lent invites us to hold up our experiences to a new light. What seems like heartache may have glimmers of light shining through - not always, but sometimes. Taking a good hard look at reality allows us to also turn it on its side, examine it from other perspectives, see what might not first meet the eye of the beholder.

Or, more simply said, sometimes the crap is really fertilizer.

Rob Bell teaches in his NOOMA video called "Tomato" the following:
"We all get consumed with ourselves; sometimes we're not even aware of it. We learn from a young age that life is about winning and impressing. We pick up that our worth and value come from how good, how smart, and how skilled we are. So, we twist things in our favor, making us look like we have it all together. Every day we have the choice to prop up these false ideas about ourselves or to let go of them. Jesus invites these parts of us to die, the parts of us that tell us our worth comes from the things we say and do. Maybe it's only when we let these things die, that we truly begin to live."

We live most days of the year focused on these things, but starting tomorrow we have the opportunity to look sideways at ourselves, our lives, our world. Lent is the chance to die to little things - or maybe big things - to let go of what is wrong and free fall into a new way of doing life.

If there is something you are hanging on to today, let it be. Let it stick to you for the next few hours like the syrup at the pancake dinner. Throw caution to the wind and hold on to that stuff until your fingers go numb if you like. Ignore it, hide it, long for it, complain about it, bury yourself in it. But tomorrow, Ash Wednesday, set your mind to let it burn away - set it ablaze and let it slide through your fingers - and see it for the ashes it really is. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

For, after all, this too shall pass. You have 40 beautiful days of Lent to let those ashes blow away, 40 days to let the wind whip around you, 40 days to begin anew. 40 precious and amazing days to let what is already dead to go about its dying. 40 days to march toward a Passion that is all your own, an ending that already belongs exclusively to you, an Easter that signals new life - not just within the gonging bells of the church, but within your own soul.

Cling to it today, but give it up tomorrow. Give "it" - whatever it is - into the hands of God. Release it from your grip and plunge into this season of little deaths.

Die well. For life awaits you.

In Wisdom,
Brandi Calhoun Diamond

For more information or to view this NOOMA video, please see: http://nooma.com/nooma_tomato_022_rob_bell.php