Celebrating Lent: What If Spring Is A Map For Resurrection?

Lent has a way of showing us what we spend the rest of the year avoiding. My name is Sarah Haykel, and in Welcoming God I share a candid reflection on celebrating Lent with real intention for the first time. 

If you’re a spiritual seeker who wants a grounded, honest take on Christian spirituality, this one is for you. Quick note: I sometimes use swear words, and we may touch on adult content!

I talk about a simple practice that helped me stay connected to Lent: daily Lenten readings. From there, I explore why Lent can feel so confronting. It asks us to look at ourselves, repair relationships, seek forgiveness, make amends, and let go of habits that keep us stuck. I also rethink the idea of fasting. Instead of only giving up sweets or alcohol, what if we abstained from judgment, critical self talk, or the patterns that cause disfunction in our lives?

My own Lenten commitment is abstaining from second guessing myself, which becomes a practice of trust in God and attentiveness to the Holy Spirit. I share journaling prompts you can use, then name the hardest piece for me: facing the reality of what happened to Jesus. Finally, I hold up spring as a living metaphor for the Easter season, a reminder that life pushes through cold soil toward light, and we can too.

If this resonates, subscribe to Welcoming God, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What are you being invited to confront and move through?

Visit WelcomingGod.com to sign up for our newsletter, download the ebook companion to season one, and connect with Sarah directly through the contact form at the bottom of the web page.  

Music by Song Channel Music.  Listen at SongChannelMusic.com

Transcript

Tempo: 120.0

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everyone, Sarah here. Just to let you know, sometimes I do use swear words in these episodes, and we may at times discuss adult content. In case you happen to be listening around little ones or people that won't appreciate that. Thanks so much for listening, and let's get right into it. Hi, and thanks for joining me on Welcoming God. Thank you for joining me today. I have felt it in my heart to record something during the Lenten Easter season that Christians celebrate at this time of the year. And I tried to record a couple of episodes and they just didn't fully feel right. So I feel the call again, and I would like to talk about a few different things today. One of them is Lent, um, from a Christian perspective. And, you know, I'm feel like I'm a new Christian coming back to Christianity after being away from it for decades and not really truly understanding it even from childhood. So this year is the first year that I ever really celebrated Lent intentionally. Last year I was Lent curious, but this year I actually did, I last year had gotten a book of readings from the Lutheran church that I sing at in the choir. I got a book of readings for every day of Lent last year. And so I just used that book for this year. And it was nice just having something to do daily that rooted me into this season of the Christian calendar. And again, I'm no scholar. I'm learning myself about all of this as an adult and uh on the journey, on the maturing journey spiritually as a human being. Um, so you know, Lent was interesting. It was, it was cool to celebrate it in a more conscious way. And I also know it feels collectively like there's some resistance to Lent, like, ooh, I don't want to look at myself. Ooh, I don't want to abstain from things, ooh, I don't want to repair relationships, ask for forgiveness, make amends. Um, you know, do some of these difficult, challenging things in my life with myself, with others, um, heal, let things go, you know, it runs the gamut. Um, I know when I was growing up, it was like, oh, I'm not gonna eat, you know, the thing was like, I'm not gonna eat sweets through Lent, or, you know, the Catholics and I guess other Christians may celebrate, I'm not eating meat on Fridays. Um, like these little symbols of abstaining from something that gives pleasure um in honor of the sacrifice that Jesus made for humanity. And um, that's the way I see it anyway. Um, so I've recently heard over the past maybe couple of years, my mom, I think, has said um, one of the priests at their church says, or she read somewhere um or heard on on um TV watching mass, like, oh, you know, EW EWTN or something. Like, instead of abstaining from sweets or alcohol or something like that, how about abstaining from judging others or judging yourself or some habit, some pattern that's not helpful, not healthy. Um, so this Lent, I abstained from second guessing myself. And honestly, I don't know how well I did with that. I I don't feel like I've done a lot of second guessing myself this Lent. So I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, or if it's just not something that I do much anymore. But I I felt at the beginning of Lent that that was something I wanted to abstain from and really trust. Trust what I call God, the one true source, whatever that is. Um, trust God, trust the Holy Spirit, the way that the truth is moving through me, the true spirit, and um, and go with that. And and I feel like for the most part, I've done that and I'm really grateful. Um so I have a question for you, which is if you do celebrate Lent or something along the lines of Lent, a time of year where you um, you know, quiet down, you get more into inquiry around yourself, your life, how you're living, how you could be living differently or better, more aligned with the values of someone like Jesus? Um how do you celebrate Lent or something like Lent in throughout your year? And what's beneficial about that? What is actually beneficial about that? And what's challenging about that? So these are just some inquiries that you can take away and journal about for your own exploration. Um I know it feels like confronting. Lent feels confronting, and there are parts of me that react to that. I don't want to, I don't want to go there. I don't want to confront what happened to Jesus, essentially. Like that's the big biggest fear. I don't want to confront that horrible, horrific decimation of Jesus, you know, um being rejected by his friends and left by his disciples and and tortured, humiliated, killed brutally. Um and he didn't do anything wrong, you know. I mean, maybe back then, according to what he was doing, they they perceived that as this is punishable by death, you know, and hanging him on the cross. I mean, it's just that is the fear for me and my parts, I I think, is the confrontation with this truth of what happened to Jesus that that was not um it's it's difficult, it's not easy to confront the reality of how he died because of how he lived. And and there's something that's you know fucked up about that to me. And that is the sacrifice that he made. He chose to follow the path, his path fully. Um, and as far as I can tell, it sounds like he knew what pretty much what was gonna befall on him, maybe not specifically, but he knew what was gonna befall him by living out the truth of God's will coming through him. That's my explanation of it. Um, not scholarly by any means, just my own current explanation of it. And um, yeah, it feels really hard to confront, confront what happened to him. So um that reality, that truth, and yeah, it feels uncomfortable. So I know in myself that's probably the biggest reason why this time of the year feels challenging. And it's interesting because we're also in the northern hemisphere coming into spring. So this is the time of year that life is waking up again. And it's also unstable. You know, there's fluctuating temperatures, storms, lots, it could be snow, could be rain, at least where I live. Um, you know, spring, the the flowers start coming through the soil, even if it's if even if there's snow on the ground. Um, so it is this symbology of the challenging the challenges that life goes through to express itself. And I I think this is an apt metaphor for what happened to Jesus and with Jesus. So as we think about the challenges that nature goes through just to push up through that dark, cold, hard soil to get to the light, you know, that impulse that like they'd say, you know, back in feminine power and that evolutionary mindset, that evolutionary impulse to grow, to push through the darkness of winter essentially, into the light, this the spring, the warmth of the spring. And to come out, come out of the darkness into literally the light, the air, the space, the clarity. That is such a beautiful, powerful metaphor. And it's a good reminder for me, and I think for all of us when we're going through literal winter, the season of winter, which can feel really challenging at times, the loss of light during the day, the cold weather, um gray days, wet uh intense weather at times, snow, rain, freezing temperatures, cold winds. And when we're also going through winters of our lives, you know, those challenging moments that we feel like we're in the darkness. We're confronted by challenging, difficult, maybe even horrific situations or experiences or circumstances. How powerful is it to remember this reality that nature goes through, that Jesus went through going from death to life, from darkness to light. Um yeah, I just think that's really powerful. So that's that's one of the things I I felt called to talk with you about today. Um is just around Lent, how you celebrate this time of year, what is that like for you? And then this powerful metaphor of spring, how that came out, you know, and how how emerging from darkness to light is such a powerful time. This is a powerful time of year for transformation and personal growth and reconciliation and um yeah, recognition, recognizing where we may have fallen short, where we're growing into, and our intentions for moving into the spring and then into the fullness of summer and the rest of the year. So that feels good for now. And there is something else that I want to share with you as well, but I think I'm gonna save that for the next episode. So tune in for that episode coming up after this one. Um, and I hope that you are enjoying whatever you celebrate right now, wherever it is at the time of year that you listen to this episode. And I just wish you all the wellness in the world, finding that strength and courage, that peace in your heart, in your mind, your body, soul, and spirit, and knowing that we are all one connected with the one true source. It is a great mystery to me. I don't understand it all. And um, I'm just wishing you wellness on the journey. Aloha Nui Loa for now. Hey everyone, Sarah Haeckel here from Welcoming God, a podcast for spiritual seekers. This is a legal disclaimer to say that this podcast is not a substitute for therapy or professional help. I am not a trained therapist. I also have not studied theology in a formal setting. This podcast is purely for educational, inspirational purposes, to share the goodness of welcoming God back into my life and all of the things that I'm learning on this journey. So thank you for joining me here, and I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks for joining me on another episode of Welcoming God. Please subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen, and consider leaving us a review as it helps more people find and benefit from this show. Music by Song Channel Music. You can listen and hear more at Song Channel Music.