For most people change is not readily embraced, especially changes in behaviour and lifestyle. However, again and again people who have survived whether it be through an illness or accident often speak of how their lives have changed.
Maybe this is why on Ash Wednesday people are confronted with their mortality: "from dust you came and to dust you return". It sets the context for the Lenten journey which is about self examination and changes in life direction.
Henry David Thoreau once wrote:
“I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately,
I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life,
To put to rout all that was not life
and not when I had come to die
Discover that I had not lived.”
Maybe a Lenten spin on Thoreau's words could say
"I observed Lent because I wanted to live an abundant life"
Of course the abundant life offered by Christ is not something we can devise or attain for ourselves but is comes to us as gift. Yet to receive and celebrate this gift involves a willing ness to go deep as we listen for the implications of that gift and live out our experience and celebration of God's grace.
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