05 / LENT

Sea smoke

On the coldest day of the year I caught the sunrise at the harbor that simmered like a cauldron in the frigid wind. The lobster boats, all pointing in the same direction, strained on their moorings while also being at rest. The sea smoke made the cold ocean appear to be on fire, another paradox of days like this. I was not out there for long before my face and hands hurt too much to stay.

When I lived in a more temperate climate, I sometimes missed the harshness of a frigid winter day in Maine. My friends in California thought I was crazy, and joking. Maybe I was a Mainiac, but I was not joking. Every once a while, I pined for a reason to be forced to go inside and stay there for a while, to hang on the mooring at home because the weather outside was frightful and even dangerous. The realness of such primal inclemency forces a paradoxical exercise of the soul and body - to be still, to keep warm, and to be grateful. The beautiful harshness of nature’s indifference to our mortal bodies causes me to take my life, and how I live it, more seriously.

As we enter the final weeks of winter we also enter the season of Lent. I think that this is the most misunderstood of the Christian seasons. No one wishes anyone a merry or joyous Lent, for Lent seems too serious for that. But while this is a serious season, it’s not a somber one. I see Lent as a reason to go inside and take a serious look around - at what matters most, to get real about what the essentials are - through self-examination, repentance for past (or current) mistakes, with prayer, fasting and self-denial. All of these have come be be seen in our current climate (pun intended) as radically counter-cultural - as if we even share a consensus anymore as to what is the “culture” we are countering. That’s another reason I love cold days. They get our attention in a way that we can all agree. It’s cold out and we need to be careful about the basic necessities and blessings of our lives.

On Ash Wednesday a priest rubbed burned ashes from last year’s Palm Sunday onto my forehead with these words: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” I can’t easily explain why such solemn words give me comfort. They are as paradoxical as a smoldering harbor on a frigid day. They remind me to number my days, to be grateful, to go inside for a while to begin to make a right new beginning for warm spring too beautiful to imagine.