Why I'm observing Lent

Lenten musing 1

I come from a Protestant background that is not without tradition in the sense that the two churches I attended as a child had their own way of doing things and their own rhythms, but they were never articulated as such. I don't know that I had met anyone who observed any part of Lent until I went to college, and at that point I was not a fan of the "organized" part of "organized religion". So as far as I could tell, Lent was a religious ritual that was nice to see in a highly secular setting, but not for me.

So why am I observing Lent now?

A couple books have been really influential in moving me toward the liturgical church calendar. The first was Girl Meets God in which Lauren Winner wrote about her conversion experience from observant Judaism to Christianity. There's a bit in her book where I think she was talking about joining a Christian community around the world that was reading the same passages and prayers according to the Book of Common Prayer, the Anglican prayer book. Given that the local church dropped vastly in my esteem in college, the idea of wanting to join in a worldwide body of Christ was really new yet appealing. In the intervening years between college and reading that book, I had spent time in the former Soviet Union and I realized that my time in that country would come and go, but the local church body I participated in would continue (hopefully) beyond my stay. Church practices that keep me connected to believers around the world pulls me out of my small individualistic perspective and I think that is healthy. So part of why I am observing Lent is to join with brothers and sisters around the world in doing so.

The second influential book was Marva Dawn's Keeping the Sabbath Wholly. This book talks about the blessing of the Sabbath that God gave the Jews. But the one message that really stuck with me is how the Sabbath provides a rhythm of celebration and work. I am one of the least sentimental people I know, so it takes real effort for me to connect with what I consider non-pragmatic things. So I come to an appreciation of holidays and rituals really late in life--like in the past 5 years. What I have come to appreciate does end up having a pragmatic slant, but that's just me. What I've been realizing is that every day can't be work and "progress". In fact, to do good work regularly, we need rest; to enjoy the day to day and the ordinary in life, we need the exceptional and extra-ordinary. Holidays and holydays help us out by refocusing us and highlighting important things that we may otherwise lose in the everyday.

Easter has been rising in importance to me as a believer, and Lent as a precursor helps me experience Easter as a season. In the meditative subtraction of Lent, the celebratory glory of Easter stands out more. And for a pragmatic curmudgeon, that's a pretty big deal.