At this point in the year our lives have settled down from the Christmas season. We are back in the routine of school and work with the added routine of snow removal and making sure we are prepared for a power outage. And then, halfway through the month, the fast of Lent begins. Will this season disrupt our routines like the Advent and Christmas seasons do? Not likely. So far, businesses and corporations have not found a lucrative way to capitalize on a Lenten fast. Ashes and sackcloth don’t sell like toys and chocolate. Which, I think, is a relief. We are able to recognize the season in a more authentic way.

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Lent kind of gets a bad rap. It’s associated with guilt for experiencing pleasure and fear of our own mortality. But I don’t think it has to be. Maybe you need permission to lament without the pressure of “looking on the bright side” just yet. Lent is good for that. Maybe you need a nudge toward self-reflection or away from your comfort zone. Lent is a manageable season with a beginning and an end to focus on those tough conversations, to sit with discomfort, to dismantle that which we find wasn’t so healthy or helpful after all. The feast of Easter will come, and the Easter season lasts longer than Lent, but it is not here yet.

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In the meantime, we are invited to remember that we are no more than ashes, and we are no less than stardust. We are connected to everything on Earth, everything in the universe, because we are all made of the same stuff. As astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson wrote in his book, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, “We are stardust brought to life.” As one of our young people said during a children’s message, “The same water we drink is the same water that dinosaurs peed in.” Beloveds, this Lenten season may we be both empowered and humbled as we remember that we are made both of stardust and dinosaur…water. May we remember that matter is neither created nor destroyed, but can always be transformed. May the fasts that God chooses for us now produce good fruit for the future.