Spiritual Sunday
Madeleine L’Engle has one of the best takes on Lent that I know. She worries that Lenten disciplines focus too much on denial and not enough on connecting with Christianity’s life-affirming dimensions. It’s the vision of Lent we get from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight:
After Christmas there came the cold cheer of Lent,
When with fish and plainer fate our flesh we reprove.
Some people talk about giving up sweets or social media but do so as though it’s a form of self-flagellation. They make Lenten resolutions the way they make New Year resolutions and break them just as quickly.
It is such a vision of Lent that L’Engle is disavowing when when she says that her Lent is “to break my Lent.” Her Lent will not involve a rejection of food or shelter. She won’t be inviting pain.
Instead, she chooses social activities that feed the soul. She will listen—really listen—to others, and she will talk when she’d rather retreat into herself. To truly belong to Christ, she will try to “turn from none who would call on me.” In other words, she will take seriously the Sermon on the Mount.
It’s a way of capturing the true spirit of the season.
For Lent, 1966
By Madeleine L’Engle
It is my Lent to break my Lent,
To eat when I would fast,
To know when slender strength is spent,
Take shelter from the blast
When I would run with wind and rain,
To sleep when I would watch.
It is my Lent to smile at pain
But not ignore its touch.
It is my Lent to listen well
When I would be alone,
To talk when I would rather dwell
In silence, turn from none
Who call on me, to try to see
That what is truly meant
Is not my choice. If Christ’s I’d be
It’s thus I’ll keep my Lent.
