“Hubbell, you’ve got it wrong. There is no way Lent is coming this early.”
My friend’s skepticism was understandable. The calendar still feels tethered to the dregs of January, yet the liturgical clock is ticking with an urgency.
“Well, my friend,” I replied, “Ash Wednesday is a mere two weeks away. February 18th is the day this year. They are already dancing in the streets in New Orleans.”
To be fair, telling someone they are dancing in the streets of the Crescent City isn’t exactly a revelation; in New Orleans, the rhythm of the street is a permanent fixture. But right now, those dances have a frantic, celebratory edge accompanied by floats and parades. They are the final, exuberant gasps of Carnival before the music stops and the purple, gold, and green are put away.
Here in Charlotte, the “early” arrival of Lent feels particularly jarring. We still have snow clinging to the shaded corners of our yards, and the local meteorologists are hinting that more is on the way. There is a strange cognitive dissonance in preparing for a season of spiritual “spring cleaning”—the root meaning of the word Lent—while the world around us is still firmly locked in the grip of winter.
Usually, we associate Lent with the first budding of the dogwoods or the cautious arrival of the daffodils. This year, we are being asked to enter the wilderness while the frost is still on the windowpane.
I have been turning this upcoming season over in my mind, wondering what it means to truly observe it well. We often default to the “standard” sacrifices—giving up chocolate, caffeine, or my favorite sacrifice — oatmeal raisin cookies. While these acts of self-denial have their place, I find myself yearning for something perhaps more radical.
The idea of a forty-day spiritual retreat to Pawleys Island has been tugging at my sleeve. There is something about the coast in the off-season—the grey Atlantic, the wind-sculpted oaks, and the profound silence of a beach town without the summer crowds—that mirrors the interior landscape of Lent. It is a place where one can actually hear the “still, small voice” that gets drowned out by the noise of our daily routines. Now if I can only win the lottery.
The one thing I know for certain is that there is nothing quite like a well-observed Lent. It acts as a necessary “reset” for the soul, a purposeful stripping away of the superfluous to find what is essential. It is the darkness that makes the light of Easter Sunday feel not just like a holiday, but like a rescue.
We have exactly two weeks to plan. I am looking for something different this year—a unique practice, a fresh sacrifice, or perhaps a new way of looking at these forty days.
To my readers: If you have an interesting idea, a tradition you’ve found meaningful, or a suggestion for how to spend this season (whether on the sands of Pawleys or in the quiet of a snow-covered home), please pass it on.
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