Veiling

Lent.

Again.

Already.

So ready.

I am so ready.

Lent is a strange and horrible and wonderful and beautiful thing, and that it should be here again so soon is slightly dizzying. The first time our children saw the purple draping on the images (fourteen years ago in Passiontide at the end of Lent, when we enter deepest mourning), they looked ill at the sight. Our youngest wanted to know how long the purple stuff was staying there - he didn't like it. Once again, the children were the clerestory windows into the church's truth. Separation - which is the proper name of Death - is a horrid and sick-making thing, and to be separated from the good Lord himself is the worst kind of death there is.

Yet this way healing comes.

Lent starts in ashes and does not refuse to walk through the darkness of the cleansing fire. Lent chooses. I choose. Lent begins this Wednesday, and now I walk into the mouth of the darkness again because I believe. This death is a veil I can see through. The purple veiling holds Life.