Ash Wednesday begins Lent

               Lent serves as our annual invitation to come closer to God. 

It provides a time to look at our lives and ourselves, 

not so we may criticize ourselves more harshly 

but so we can identify the obstructions that keep us from God.

What keeps us from feeling the presence of the divine in our every day? 

 How do we hide from God, and why?

Lent gives us a chance to look at such obstructions 

and to move them gently away 

so that we can come closer to the Love that gives us life, 

the Love whose triumph we will celebrate on Easter morning.

- Sarah Parsons
A Clearing Season: Reflections for Lent