a few thoughts on lent

~What comes out of the mouth comes from the heart; Matthew 15:18

Today is the first day of Lent, which comes form the Old Dutch, lentin, meaning spring season.

Traditionally, Christians honor this day with prayer and fasting, marking their foreheads with ashes in the shape of a cross to remember Jesus' 40 days of fasting in the desert. 

This year, the first day of Lent also falls on the first day of the month of adar in the Hebrew calendar. According to Jewish custom, it was on this day that the plague of darkness covered Egypt before the great Exodus toward the Promised Land. In six weeks, Jews will observe Passover and Christians Easter, a celebration of passing from darkness into light and experiencing the magnificent rebirth of life known as Spring. 

Lent is a time of temptation resisted, a wilderness experience or midbar... If we focus on deprivation, it can seem long* with the days getting longer but not fast enough. But if we focus on the outcome, freedom from slavery, it can be a time of joyful anticipation, like a wanted pregnancy. 

Midbar also means mouth in Hebrew and, although Lent may seem about what we put in our mouths, it is really about what comes out of them. 

*possibly the origin of the word lentin, as in the French word "lent"