Lent does not usually win popularity contests

Even a lot of church folk resist it.

So here are a few phrases to ponder. Roll them around in your mind. Share the resultant thoughts with a friend, or post them back here.

The thing about Lent seems to be this: what we resist about Lent are the same things with which we struggle most about in life.

Here are some suggestive thoughts at the beginning of Lent--

Wholeness entails a dismembering.

Dismemberment is part of the transformation that brings atonement-- at-one-ment.

Such oneness is a change.

Such change cannot happen without a dying.

Lent is pilgrimage: a conscious engagement of suffering and death

and a taking stock of the gift of life.

That does NOT mean you are supposed to go looking for suffering. That is a blasphemous insult to those who are suffering and an affront to the Divine by mistaking God for an executioner.

So, back off from suffering. Instead, go looking for support!

Joining this pilgrimage with others will rescue the individual from being his or her own judge, jury and gallows guard. We will be reminded, instead, of the grace of God (and just when we were ready to lock one's self up, too). Lent is not an arraignment; rather, Lent-- the scripture readings, the symbols, the ritual actions--is spiritual training. In your "cell" instead of feeling locked up (ok, honestly you might feel locked up for a longer period than you'd like), the world will open up to you.

Yes, the ritual acts are acts of mortification--dying to the self.

Nobody said the pilgrimage is going to be a vacation.

However, it will be a breath of life, the breath of God.

"Breathe on us, breath of God."

Help us remember not so much that we are nothing but ashes but, rather, in our being touched by ash, humus, dirt we become more in touch and brought down to earth--back to the basics of life.

Lent readies the ground for planting--turning us over, breaking up our clods, that we might accept the fertile basic fact of life: love.

Lent's spring training gets us ready for Holy Week-- that dramatic enactment of the way things are: showing us that the most basic and fertile love of all is that between Jesus and God. Their love bears us and carries us to birth.