Can you believe we’re only a week into Lent? It feels like ages ago since I heard “remember you are dust, and unto dust you shall return.” And feels like AGES since I’ve tapped one of these timewasters:

(See that? Had to move them all the way to the fifth screen over so I wouldn’t be tempted by them every time I checked out Justin in that sweet library my email.)

On Ash Wednesday, the priest said that “Lent” is from the Old English word “lencten” which means “spring.” It refers to the “lengthening” of days that comes with this time of year. And he invited us to think about Lent less as a time of hardship and self-denial and more as a time of lengthening our spirits – stretching and growing along with the days, embracing the growing light.

Ooooo, now that is an entirely different kettle of fish, yes? It’s less about mortifying the flesh and more about making room. It’s less about giving up social media and more about listening for different voices.

I’m definitely hearing different voices. Our church is reading through the entire New Testament through Lent (goodness, that Paul was prickly). It is fabulous. I’m used to doing exegesis on small snippets of text; this whole “gulping it down” pace is something completely different. There’s no time to get bogged down in the details – instead it’s all just wave after wave of freedom and redemption and justice and mercy and grace.

This song’s been running through my head these days:

My favourite part:

Tomorrow’s freedom is today’s surrender
We come before You lay our burdens down
We look to You as our hearts remember
You are the only God You are our only God

THIS! Is what Lent is all about. Not white-knuckling through the temporary giving up of all the things that make us happy and being all somber and sad. But about surrendering the things that hold us back (see: obsessively checking Facebook and getting caught up in Reddit and all the never-ending mundanity in the world) and replacing their “loss” with abundance and life. I’m looking up from my phone and seeing the world around me (and, not gonna lie, looking right back down into a book, but a book is a different thing, yes?). I’m realizing what a burden those other voices were and how much their clatter and clamour in my head were costing me.

I feel the lengthening within me. I see the lengthening of days and the budding of newness around me.

Everything and everyone is getting ready.