Lent: OE lencten. Spring.

I know what Lent is liturgically, but today I looked up the word because I wanted to know where it came from. That is something I have been craving lately--history. origins. Basically it means "spring" or "lengthen" because of the increase in daylight hours. It is curious to me, though, that in English, the word lent is also the past tense for "granting the use of something on the condition that it, or its equivalence, will be returned."
That's something to ponder over this month of fasting, developing new habits and shedding old ones. In some senses, this time that has been given to me, in which I live, is only on loan. Many of my problems, in fact, come from trying to immortalize the minutes that have passed and trying to determine the minutes of my future, as if they are all my own and I have a right to use them and shape them as I wish. The heartbreak happens when I realize how powerless I am to control my own Time, and that I have wasted the moments I could have spent learning to trust and enjoy in futile grasping. Hope arrives when I realize that lost chances past can be redeemed and there are more opportunities to grow ahead of me.
I am taking Lent very seriously this year. I have given something up for the past three years, but this year, I am moving forward with determination and joy, rather than obligation and dread. Could it be the changing of the weather, the lengthening of light, or the altering of my life circumstances that is making me so eager to be renewed? In some senses, I feel that I am being reinvented at this time in my life, even down to almost insignificant details like what I wear and how I do my hair. It's exhilarating...and terrifying: the famous combination of most of my life experiences. What kind of person am I?
My focus for this season of renewal is TIME. Giving up some time-eating habits to experimentally allocate those minutes elsewhere, in meditation and quiet, learning and practicing something new, and giving it to others in active, loving service. I want what I always want but never give myself--rest and quiet. But I also want to do what I talk about but often don't follow through with--to show someone love by doing something for them.
I also find myself wanting to be very aware of the process I am going through, so I'm cracking open my hand-written journal again for the season.
What a fine line it is, I am finding, between dutiful superstition and purposeful growth. I want to allow myself to bumble through the process of any church season, to be forgiving when I am not perfect, to take the good and leave the bad behind as a lesson well learned.
So you may read this and feel a sense of restriction, feel your cynicism on the rise. But when I look into this season characterized somewhat by somberness and, yes, gloom, I see shadows pierced by soft candlelight, I hear the quiet of still thoughtfulness and I sense the wonder of a mystery slowly opening outward.