Recently our youngest son and I visited the Touch and Feel Room at the Bell Museum, and there, laying on top of one of the snake cages, was a recently shed snakeskin.

Memories of Lent begin, for me, as a young adult. Away from home in a college town and unafraid of church-sampling, I attended Vespers, Compline, Ash Wednesday and Holy Week services in search of great music. So much was available - free - within walking distance, and I grew to love the smell of old wood, old hymnals, the lingering smoke of incense, and the reverent silences.

I remember that as a child my parents would have a folder where you were supposed to put a quarter for each day during Lent. We would return the folder on Easter. At the time I thought that was a really big sacrifice.

Growing up in my family, Lent didn’t mean much more than “giving some thing up.” The ritual of withholding from myself it this way hasn’t seemed to move me closer to God. Instead, during Lent I am playing with my “bodyspirit”. I am moving and thinking with a renewed curiosity about how my body and my spirit experience the physical world.

I was asked to write a devotion for the Lenten Reflections.I had no idea what I would come up with. Expressing myself can be difficult sometimes. I thought it would be a good challenge for me. Lent wasn't discussed much at our house when I was a child. I learned the importance of Lent more recently.

Like many people, my views around Lent and religion in general have been shaped by my family and how I grew up. My parents took me to church and encouraged prayer, but they didn’t explain topics such as what Lent means in the church year, or why people give things up for Lent. 

I enter this season of lent without any desire to engage in deep contemplation or slow down. Personally, I am in a season of grief and uncertainty. Then, there are the challenges we face as a nation in this moment of widespread injustice and pain. It feels too hard to sit in the now, so I find myself resisting the Lenten call.

In my youth, Lent was a time of quiet reflection and remorse leading up to Good Friday. In LaCrosse, Wisconsin, where I grew up, Good Friday (especially from 12-3 pm) was the most holy of days. Most businesses closed, church bells pealed, and it seemed there was little or no outside activity in my community for those three hours.

I grew up Catholic, which included not only going to Mass every Sunday with my dad but also attending mandatory Ash Wednesday services at my Catholic school. Lent calls to mind scribbling things I would give up onto elementary school worksheets–”This year, I’m giving up pop for Lent”– and seeing ashes smeared all over everything in the classroom by the end of the day.

eMy first introduction to Lent as a practice was when my daughter came home from church youth group. She told me what she had learned and said she was trying to decide what to 'give up' for Lent. I was drawn in by a middle school youth talking about giving up social media. During the next week I dug into the history and meaning of Lent. Lent is actually a word that simply means the season of spring. It has been a Christian practice first acknowledged in the early 300's AD. It is presently celebrated in the church calendar year (Liturgical Calendar) year.

My folks started a Baptist church (Salem Baptist, now Gracepoint, in New Brighton) along with three couples who were all affiliated with Bethel Seminary. We were new to Minnesota because my dad had taken a job at Honeywell. The year was 1961. The other families attended Elim Baptist in Mpls. Nordeast and wanted to expand to start a second church, which was considered mission work. We had just moved to Minnesota from Illinois for the first time (there would be two more moves back to Minnesota). I was four years old.

I didn’t grow up with Lent. Attending a non-dom, e-free church meant we didn’t consider Lent as long as we were saved - born again. Our focus was on saving others; there was evangelizing work to accomplish. But as an adult, I was introduced to Lent while attending an episcopal church and experienced it in the same way I’ve been introduced to folk dancing; I tend to get tripped up lost in the fundamentals.

In Christian tradition, Lent echoes the forty days Jesus fasted and was tempted before beginning his ministry. The story of those forty days is set “in the wilderness.” In this story, the wilderness is a barren place, harsh, devoid of food and water. It is seen as a place of difficulty, where Jesus was tempted against the test of despair. In memorializing the wilderness of Jesus’ place and time, we are asked to give up something, to do without.

For years, my friend Maggie and I have been wishing each other a “Happy Lent.” The spring we gave up sugar, the spring she was waiting for her first child to be born, the spring I went on antidepressants, the spring we tried the “add a practice” alternative to Lenten deprivation—each of these years it was the same: a text from her in Michigan to me in Minnesota, or vice versa: “Happy Lent!” with some kind of celebration emoji. This doesn’t on the surface make much sense; Lent is not liturgically earmarked to be a happy time. So why the delight in its arrival? I’ve been trying to think about that.

For years, my friend Maggie and I have been wishing each other a “Happy Lent.” The spring we gave up sugar, the spring she was waiting for her first child to be born, the spring I went on antidepressants, the spring we tried the “add a practice” alternative to Lenten deprivation—each of these years it was the same: a text from her in Michigan to me in Minnesota, or vice versa: “Happy Lent!” with some kind of celebration emoji. This doesn’t on the surface make much sense; Lent is not liturgically earmarked to be a happy time. So why the delight in its arrival? I’ve been trying to think about that.

In my childhood, Lent meant 7 weeks of the mystery & beauty of seven Wednesday evening candlelit liturgical services added to our family’s otherwise dull routine. The lights were dimmed each week during the pastor’s sermons to help people focus on the pulpit - the only other illumination being the flickering altar candles until the closing hymn when the house lights came back. As a sleepy toddler, I was allowed to stretch out on the pew bench and doze during the sermon. I loved those special moments in the quiet sanctuary with its soaring ceiling, huge windows (now dark) and the somber solemnity and ritual. So to me, Lent — with its looming dramatic shadows of Jesus’ cross — primarily meant adding extra worship rather than sacrificially giving up something.

In my childhood, Lent meant 7 weeks of the mystery & beauty of seven Wednesday evening candlelit liturgical services added to our family’s otherwise dull routine. The lights were dimmed each week during the pastor’s sermons to help people focus on the pulpit - the only other illumination being the flickering altar candles until the closing hymn when the house lights came back. As a sleepy toddler, I was allowed to stretch out on the pew bench and doze during the sermon. I loved those special moments in the quiet sanctuary with its soaring ceiling, huge windows (now dark) and the somber solemnity and ritual. So to me, Lent — with its looming dramatic shadows of Jesus’ cross — primarily meant adding extra worship rather than sacrificially giving up something.

I had the good fortune this month (March 2022) to visit Southern Nebraska to observe the Great Migration of the Sandhill Cranes.  It was one of those bucket list things.  In my over 60 years of living, I have seen the Cranes on the prairie and heard them in the skies of South Dakota as they moved in the Spring and Fall but never before now, did I have the opportunity to see the great gathering of Sandhill Cranes along the Platte River.  The two days that I chose in March were filled with clouds and snow, not the beautiful sunsets filled with cranes that the photographers capture. Even in those less than perfect viewing conditions, I was moved.

Lent is actually my favorite church season. Unlike Advent, during Lent I give myself permission to plod along, to be thoughtful in my daydreams, to delight in my successes, to ponder my shortcomings and to wonder about God’s purpose for me in the world.

By both nature and nurture I am a planner. I'm organized and make plans for the future days, weeks and months ahead of time. I plan for worst and best case scenarios and everything in-between. In my work I move quickly between projects. The pace of my workday does not leave time for my mind to process and reflect on one meeting before I launch into the next.