Season 5, Episode 1: a beginning song

Today’s Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten season in the church. Here are some things that Lent is not:

-It’s not a self-help program
-It’s not a vehicle for jump starting your new weight loss plan
-It’s not (necessarily) a time to kick addictions (i.e. coffee, chocolate, social media)

I’m tempted to say that it’s not about you at all. And yet it is. It’s another in the never ending refrain of death and resurrection that God has been singing forever. You give something up (death) so that something new and beautiful can be born in you and in the world (resurrection).

Anyone who knows me can tell you that I’m not a naturally positive person (Fact: I told someone the other day that I’m a high-functioning grump), but I am hopeful. I was listening to a podcast this morning, and one of the hosts said that wonder is the antidote to cynicism, and I really like that. So I’m trying to cultivate a sense of wonder, and in doing so hopefully putting to death my ever growing cynicism. But as my friend Libby says, this is a process.

I’m not so interested in what people are giving up during their Lenten journey. I’m more interested in what new and beautiful things will be wrought.

I’ll leave you with this, two things that are giving me life today. The most wonder-filled song I know. It fills me with hope and wrecks me every time. A Beginning Song by The Decemberists. Appropriate I think for this first day of Lent.

Secondly, this aptly titled video from Broderick Greer, theologian, minister, and Twitter specialist. Rend our hearts. Rend systems.

• Faith