Taylor: Leaving home for Lent

Posted: Saturday, March 15, 2003

   ''What are you going to give up for Lent?''


For most of my life this question has been filled with calculation. What is it that I can give up with the least amount of discomfort? Brussel sprout is always a tempting choice. Too often we think of Lent as a season of punishment or 40 days of denial or deprivation. It's as if Lent is the payment for the grace given at Easter.

   When I was a child, I kept thinking that I could deal with no candy because the Easter bunny was coming. I calculated that the chocolate Easter morning would more or less equal the amount I missed during Lent. Of course, it never dawned on me that I might be changed in the 40 days. I was just hoping to get through it with the least amount of pain.

   The word ''lent'' comes from an Anglo-Saxon word meaning ''to lengthen,'' or, in other words, ''spring'' as the days which get longer. It, therefore, is the season to let more light into our hearts and souls by casting out the darkness. Instead of punishing ourselves, we are to take a long hard look at our lives and evaluate what hinders us from embracing new life. Lent is not a season of punishment but of transformation. The goal of Lent is, after all, Easter. We are not merely to survive 40 days without chocolate; we are to be made new.


G. Porter


more Porter columns Perhaps we need to think of Lent as a pilgrimage. We are asked to leave home Ash Wednesday and, like the Israelites, wander in the wilderness looking for the promised land. How do we become pilgrims for these 40 days?

   First, we have to know our destination even if we don't know how to get there. Who is it that God is calling me to be? When I think of myself as being reborn, what kind of person would I like to be? What is the part of me that I buried a long time ago and yearn to have resurrected? What is God's dream for our world?

   It takes courage to go on pilgrimage because it requires believing that we can be changed and our world can be changed. We forget that Easter doesn't make sense because something new has come into the world. Therefore, we don't have to know how we are going to accomplish anything but only where we long to go. After all, we don't create change, God does. We turn our backs on the old and step off into the unknown.

   We don't need much stuff for the journey; pilgrims travel light. Instead of asking what we have to give up; let's ask what's worth taking. There are some basic tools that will come in handy: Holy Scripture, prayer, and worship. However, many of our habits and attachments will only weigh us down. We probably won't need to lug our televisions across the desert, and we would probably could do without our petty jealousies or our hardened hearts.

   Then comes the hardest part; we leave home. We turn our backs on the old and step into the unknown without a map. Instead we walk and look for clues. The Irish monks used to go on pilgrimage by getting into a boat and throwing away the oars. Like the Israelites with Moses, we don't know where the promised land is or even how to get there. Therefore, we look for the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night.

   When we leave home, we let God out of the box. We become so rigid in our certainties that we turn our ideologies into idols. Instead of knowing what God wants, what would it mean to wander, looking for God to disclose Godself? What would it mean to put all of our careful positions behind us and hop in a boat and throw away the oars? What would it mean to practice saying ''I don't know'' or ''I could be wrong'' and then to look for what God has to say?

   It might mean new people. It might mean a new church. It might mean a community of the faithful that can talk to each other about the issues of our day. It might mean discovering resurrection.

    The Rev. G. Porter Taylor is rector of St. Gregory the Great Episcopal Church in Athens. He is the author of ''To Dream as God Dreams.''




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