Winter is turning toward Spring, it is time for Lent. In our neighborhoods, we see petals everywhere-blooming flowers, blossoms in the trees, floating around us on the breeze and covering the ground. We delight in these petals, and in the strawberries, artichokes, and birdsong, too. Sometimes, being a human is so sweet.
Thank you God for our beautiful world.
And even as our hearts surge with springtime feelings, we know this beautiful world is also a wilderness. War, fear, injustice, sickness, and death surround us and facing our humanity is hard. Wherever we turn, dust; wherever we step, terrain that challenges us.
God of the petals and the wilderness, be near us now.
Mother God, Lent reminds us we need you. To comfort all the hurt, to forgive all our wrongdoing. We need that merciful lap to sit in and recount how being a human in this world means suffering.
As we face our humanity, be with us.
Mother, you hold all your children in this way, there is not one who isn’t loved and cherished by you. No matter how powerful we may think we are, we are dust and to dust will return. We need your strong love to surround us.
As we face our humanity, hold us close.
In that embrace, we are held with those who have gone before us. In God’s embrace, death doesn’t separate us.
As we face our humanity, we seek the wisdom of their lives and stories.
Walking this road of Lent, ashes and plain cloth line our path. Being present to the wilderness in the world and in ourselves is painful. We can falter, look away, pretend we aren’t connected.
God, give us courage to walk in this wilderness. May the journey reveal new depths of your love for us and new understandings of our humanity.