Let me hear of your loving-kindness in the morning, for I put my trust in you;
show me the road that I must walk, for I lift up my soul to you. Psalm 143:8
“It seems like an odd thing to say, but I’m kind of looking forward to Lent,” my daughter says. We are in the car on our way to the annual Shrove Tuesday pancake supper at our church.
“It’s a time to be reflective,” she continues, “You know, like how it is when it snows and even if everything seems panicked and loud outside, the snow somehow makes it all more quiet and peaceful?”
The provocative image catches me up short. I think of a world blanketed in snow, beautifully silent.
In the early morning, as I lift my forehead to receive ashes, a few flecks drift past my eyelashes. Flakes of ashes, falling as softly as snow. What would it be like to be blanketed in Lent? To wrap myself in a shawl of quiet reflection, less busyness, more intentional listening?
What would it be like to allow the gifts that Lent offers to soften the noise of daily trouble? What would it be like to enter into this season lifting my soul to God, to be marked by the dust of my beginning and the dust of my end and to trust in loving-kindness?
copyright © Anne E. Kitch 2013
