Lent 2: Dominant Voices

She had an unmistakable voice, some thought it was beautiful. Fresh from her high school chorus where she stood out among the others, she arrived at our first college choir rehearsal ready to assume a leading role. She took her place in the front row and sang with the gusto of an opera soprano. The director tried to get her to soften her tone and listen to the other voices, but she didn’t know how. She’d never done it before.

“The melody’s getting lost,” he pointed out, “as well as the harmonies.” She nodded as if she understood but continued her dominant performance. Little did I know the valuable lesson she was teaching me.

Recently, I was talking to a group of soulful sojourners, and the topic of negative voices came up. Despite our best efforts to listen to the positive, optimistic, voices within, the negative voices are sometimes the only ones we can hear, we confessed. Like the classmate in college, the negative voices seem to take their places in the front row and sing in such a way as to drown out all the others. As a result, we can’t hear the divine melody of our lives, nor the sacred harmonies around it.

It's hard to hear you’re a child of God when all you hear is how flawed you are.

It’s hard to hear that life’s a blessing when all you hear is what’s wrong with it.

It’s hard to hear the joy of life when all you hear is life is about striving and winning.

Yes, the negative voices are loud, but the season of Lent is a time to stand back and listen for other voices, the ones that come from God. It’s the season to silence, or at least quiet, the dominant sopranos screeching in the front row and listen to other voices and the melody given long ago.

Lent 1: Roles

“We prayed only for knowledge of his will and the strength to carry that out.”

Seeing my name on the cast list, beside the role I’d always wanted to play, was an unforgettable moment. I arrived an hour early to the first rehearsal and knew most of my lines before we were done blocking the show, but the experience was far from what I imagined. The director and I butted heads and struggled working together throughout the run, making the experience more of a chore than delight. On the surface, the show was a success, but it could have been so much more.

Looking back, I can see one of the reasons for the difficulties was that I spent more time trying to direct the show than act in it. I thought I knew better than the director and only begrudgingly did what he said.

No wonder I’ve always struggled to live a life of faith. Instead of being content as an actor in life, I’ve tried to climb into the director’s chair and tell every person, place, or thing how they should be. It’s exhausting, as anyone who’s tried can tell you. While the show may end up looking successful, it could be so much more.

Lent is a season to climb out of the director’s chair and back onto the stage. There’s a role specifically for us, but we waste precious time trying to be in charge of everything and everyone. Now is the time, Lent is the season, to return to our proper roles. Chances are the director knows what he’s doing. He doesn’t need our advice. He just needs us to do what he created us for.

Ash Wednesday

When I wrote my novel, Burning Faith, I knew the story needed an arc - a place where it began and a place it ended. At first, I thought the story began when the church burned to the ground on Christmas, but I now know the real story began after that tragic event. It began not in the fire but in the ashes. The characters gathered on Ash Wednesday and placed the ashes of their church on their foreheads and began their walk through the important but difficult days that led to new life.

It's a familiar arc with which we all can identify. Dramatic events come whether we want them to or not, leaving behind piles of ash. “Now what?” is the common refrain when standing before a pile of ash, and it’s at that moment all stories begin.

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of the season of Lent, the day when Christians around the globe gather and have ashes put on their foreheads with the words, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” It’s as somber as the church gets. It’s as real as any spiritual day of the liturgical year.

Ashes initiate the season, begin the story, if we let them. They remind us that we come from the earth and to the earth we will return. What we do in between is up to us, and God. Grounded in our humanity, we get the chance to face our unvarnished lives, to push our hands into the mounds of ash, and search for the life that awaits on the other side of that messy work.

It's not work for the spiritual amateur. (Better those folks focus on not eating chocolate.) But for those of us seeking spiritual growth, no matter the cost, this is our day. This is our moment. It’s time to get our hands dirty and awaken to the arc of our souls’ divine story.