About Lent
I grasped for words
to wrap with neat corners
and crisp edges.
Lent in a box: silky like a purple stole.
But in this season
we find courage
to confront difficult things.
Lent is our communal looking glass.
It is both holding space
and being held by
those who contemplate with us.
We do not do this work alone.
Together, we open ourselves to our own suffering
and to the suffering of the world.
Lent is giving breath
to the parts of us
that beg for healing,
offering compassion
to our eternal child.
Sitting with her
as she weeps.
Lent is seeing injustice in our neighborhoods
inequity among friends
violence against sisters.
It is to embody the wounds of ‘the least of these’
as our own.
Lent is bravery draped in shawls of love.
Sometimes
it is finding the lost sheep, gathering her up
and feeding her.
Sometimes
it is discovering that we are the lost sheep.
Lent is the harbinger
of tombs emptied.
It is sitting with our truths
even when they aren’t flattering.
It is speaking for the ones
whose voices
have been quelled
until their song is heard.
Lent is a quiet roar
a reflection in motion,
a mending
within and between
to break down the walls
that box us in.
It is both our work and salve.
Kathryn Yingst, 03.19.23