When I was a youngster, my best friend Mark was a Catholic; and unlike Protestant me, he had to give up something for Lent. Perhaps those of you who grew up Catholic did so too. Usually, he gave up something like candy, which probably was not too painful, but did raise his awareness and mine that Lent was a time set apart to get ready for Easter.

 

I haven't made a practice of giving up something for Lent; but then, on a Tuesday a week or so before the beginning of Lent, a 50-foot section of our driveway took a long fall toward Soquel. Our family now walks up our steep driveway, portaging food and whatever we used to schlep easily from car to house. Then came more trouble: as I write this, both of our cars are broken, one needing a tow to Santa Cruz now -- quite a long drive, since the Soquel San Jose Road is closed.

 

None of these happenstances were voluntary of course, so it's not as though I willingly gave up my driveway and my old but previously reliable cars; and furthermore, there is no loss of life and limb in this story.

 

But, I must say, it feels a bit like a trial, a time to challenge myself or take on God's challenge to find a faithful, faith-full, way to live with unaccustomed adversity. Looking at the huge slide where once my driveway ran, and contemplating the dollars to get it fixed, I found myself moved to tears - but also to faith. I am determined that something good will come out of this, that it is not a meaningless exercise in spending a lot of money for something that should just BE THERE!

 

I haven't gotten an estimate for fixing it yet -- the whole project will certainly take months; but so far I think I am mostly hopeful and faithful. The first few days, I stopped every time I went by the hole and asked it, what are you going to teach me today? Last Sunday, as I asked that question, a pair of juncos, chittering while they flew, landed together right on the edge of the broken pavement, completely oblivious to the 20-foot drop below them. They just chatted and pecked, nonchalant as could be. Jesus said, "Consider the birds of the air, they neither toil nor spin, yet even Solomon and all his glory was not clothed like one of these." Another day it was more like, "Don't lay up treasures on earth!"

 

Easter is April 16, and we will prepare together in worship to receive its mystery. Some of that preparation requires us to face death in its many forms. Maybe Lent is more a preparation for death, and then God gives the grace of resurrection to remind us of who God is and who we really are.

 

The death of a driveway is only a material thing, infinitely far removed from the death of a loved one or anything that brings hurt to a person; but like all kinds of death it does give us an opportunity to dive deeply to receive God's gift of infinite and undying love. Whether you give something up for Lent, or it gets given up for you, please join me in seeking the deepest possible connection to the transformative meaning it may have for your life.  In so doing, we will open ourselves for God to show us the mystery that  "love never ends".