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When I was growing up, Lent was such a long dreary season. It was like a 40-day funeral. Our congregation had mid-week Lenten services every Wednesday evening. The adults rarely talked with each other before or after the service, and when they did talk, it was in hushed tones.
As a young adult, I experienced Lenten seasons very differently. Our congregation gathered for a soup supper every Wednesday before worship. We pared down our abundant potlucks to a simple meal of bread and soup, a type of fasting. In addition to the regular offering, we would take up another offering for ministries in our community. We sometimes “adopted” those ministries and completed service projects for them. We followed the Lenten disciplines with a renewed focus on prayer, almsgiving, fasting.
I’m now middle-aged, and I continue to understand more about Lent and I experience the season more fully. The gloomy penitential tone of my childhood Lent is gone. Penitence is still a part of Lent, of course, but it has been reshaped for me as 40 days of repentance and renewal. I turned “giving up” something for Lent into a realignment of my relationship with God.
This message is excerpted from “Looking into the Mirror, A Lenten Reflection” by Linda Post Bushkofsky, a 2009 resource of the Women of the ELCA.