Lent Is Springtime
Dear All Souls,
Grace and peace to you at the beginning of this holy spring.
On Ash Wednesday I quoted words that have stayed with me for years from Rowan Williams. He said in a 2009 Lenten Reflection,
“But it’s important to remember that the word ‘Lent’ itself comes from the old English word for ‘spring’. It’s not about feeling gloomy for forty days; it’s not about making yourself miserable for forty days; it’s not even about giving things up for forty days. Lent is springtime. It’s preparing for that great climax of springtime which is Easter – new life bursting through death. And as we prepare ourselves for Easter during these days, by prayer and by self-denial, what motivates us and what fills the horizon is not self-denial as an end in itself but trying to sweep and clean the room of our own minds and hearts so that the new life really may have room to come in and take over and transform us at Easter.”
Lent is springtime.
That is not sentimental optimism. It is agricultural realism. Before there is blossom, there is soil. Before there is fruit, there is the quiet, unseen work of roots. The ash on our foreheads is not a theatrical gesture toward despair. It is a reminder that we are dust, yes. But dust is the very thing God breathes upon. Dust is what receives seed. Dust is what makes resurrection possible.
So often we approach Lent as a private negotiation. What am I removing from my life to make room for God. What am I adding to my life to deepen my walk with God. Those are good and necessary questions. They matter.
But historically, Lent has never been only an individual exercise. It has been the season when the Church, together, returns. Together we repent. Together we pray. Together we fast. Together we prepare those who will be baptized at Easter. Together we remember who we are.
Christ did not enter history to gather a collection of spiritually optimized individuals. He entered history announcing a kingdom. And what does that kingdom look like? It looks like a people. A congregation. A community learning, imperfectly and patiently, to walk the way of Jesus side by side.
The kingdom looks like forgiveness practiced in real relationships. It looks like shared tables and shared burdens. It looks like generosity that spills beyond our own comfort. It looks like a people who submit their imagination, their money, their time, their wounds, to the lordship of Christ. Not in abstraction, but in embodied, local ways.
Recently my Bishop encouraged a return to my vows this Lent. To read them again. To let them read me. In my case that means returning to my baptismal vows. It means returning to the promises I made when I joined our religious order, the Order of St. Anthony. It means returning to the vows I made as a priest.
But I am not only a priest. I am also a member of this local expression of the Body of Christ that gathers around the Body of Christ. I am a member of All Souls.
Which means that for me, returning to my vows also means returning to our Rule of Life.
Our Rule is not a branding exercise. It is not a set of aspirational slogans. It is a shared path. It is the way we have discerned, together, that obedience to Jesus will take shape among us. It names how we pray. How we practice attentiveness. How we practice hospitality. How we seek restoration. How we join God’s work of shalom in our neighborhoods.
Many of us stood and affirmed this Rule. We did not vow it in the same way we vowed our baptismal promises, but we said yes to it. And even for those who did not stand that particular Sunday, if you consider All Souls your church home, this Rule is part of the soil we share.
So here is my invitation.
Over the course of Lent, prayerfully read through your baptismal vows. Read through our Rule of Life. Slowly. Without rush.
Pay attention to where you experience resistance. Notice where something in you tightens. Notice where you feel a quiet pull, a warmth, a flicker of desire, a wondering. Where do you sense invitation? Where do you sense fear? Where do you feel weary? Where do you feel alive?
This is not about grading yourself. It is about listening.
Lent is springtime. It is the season when Christ, the coming King, enters again into the history of our lives and into the shared life of this congregation. He does not come to shame the soil. He comes to tend it. He does not come to uproot us in anger. He comes to plant his life more deeply in us.
May this be a Lent in which we return. Not as individuals trying harder. But as a people remembering who we are.
Dust breathed upon.
A body gathered.
A kingdom taking root.
With you in the spring,
Bliss +