Pullover for Lent

As the season of Lent begins again, it's like slipping on my old blue woolly jumper.

Probably about 15 years old, the jumper is stretched and saggy and, following Lisa's frown, I tend not to wear it in public. But it's often my go-to for warmth and comfort.

This week, after a fun family Shrove Tuesday evening enjoying savoury and sweet pancakes, I realised Lent, like my tatty pullover, was my go-to season. As I woke on Ash Wednesday, I welcomed Lent's reassuring presence and remembered the haven it's offered in the past two years, following my diagnosis with cancer at the end of Lent in 2023. It's a relief to be able to relax into a season which mirrors, and encourages, a lack of pretence that everything's okay.

Ash Wednesday in particular will always remind me of a colourful work trip to the Diocese of Matlosane in South Africa in 2018 where we marked the start of Lent in a packed black-majority church. Usually a solemn service, the soot crosses painted on our foreheads - to mark the fact we come from dust and will return to it - were set off by vibrant singing and smiling from the people there which continued throughout our two-week visit. My heart marinated in the emotions experienced in the local communities that welcomed us, ranging from deep sadness and desperation to overflowing joy expressed in banging rhythms and dance.

The journey emotions take is explored in Richard Rohr's latest book The Tears Of Things. Rohr outlines the move from judgemental anger to broken-hearted compassion in the Old Testament prophets, through the alchemic, transformative power of tears. It's a timely read which inspired a track on the new U2 EP, Days Of Ash, released on (you guessed it) Ash Wednesday. Nearing the track's finale, Bono sings: "when people go around talking to God, it always ends in tears."

There's a holiness and a wholeness in tears, and in forgiving, accepting and coming to terms with our imperfect, messy lives. Tears - of sadness and joy - comfort, soften and expand us. They wipe us clean to make us more receptive to newness, change and hope - however far off and ungraspable these things may appear to be.

Lent is traditionally a 40-day period of reflection where we choose to come into full contact with our tears, our mortality, our limits and our loss. As I quoted Kate Bowler last Lent, it's "the season where God is on the losing team."

In years gone by I've given up a variety of things for Lent including alcohol, meat and music (leading to the death of an old iPod which breathed its last after not being charged for 40 days). But now my whole life regularly feels like a giving up, a letting go, a disciplining of my body through treatment to keep my cancer in check. Lent feels like the rest of the world (or the church calendar at least!) is catching up with my daily experience.

This isn't meant to sound depressing or heroic, because it usually isn't. Of course, the more we have to struggle for something - whether it's a relationship, a job or our health - the more we also tend to cherish and appreciate it.

Lent is ultimately a season of letting go and coming to terms with - maybe even celebrating - what is, rather than what was or what should be. This is encapsulated poignantly and humorously in The Ballad Of Wallis Island, a UK film we watched recently about a super-fan's quirky quest to stage a reunion concert by his favourite indie-folk duo, in honour of his late wife. As his grand plans crumble like sand in the wake of the band's knotty past, a fresh reality emerges that allows him to grieve his past and spark the beginnings of new love.

Lent - which houses the beginning of Spring - anticipates, and waits for, life and joy and light to appear as Easter slowly approaches. It's a fertile season for soil and growth where greenery returns, days lengthen and clumps of crocuses appear. The purple ones (pictured above) have just flowered in our garden's borders, along with a single, small crocus which has popped up in the lawn-edge. Lisa has planted sticks around this delicate flower (pictured below) to stop it from getting trampled; maybe an object lesson for how we are called to protect and honour what fragile newness is beginning to emerge in our lives and the lives of those we love.

As with last year, I'm hoping to blog a bit more frequently during Lent but we'll see! Now, to cite a slightly less well-known Irish band: "Where's me jumper"?