“Ye must be born again.”(John 3:7)
I don’t know why, but I’ve been thinking a lot about babies and birthing lately. I ponder the adjustments the newborn must make–adjustments that are essential, though not necessarily easy–if life is to go on: adjustments to air, adjustments to light, adjustments to big sisters that ache to play,… in a manner of speaking, newborns need to “die” to one way of existing if they are to experience and enjoy the larger world “out here.”
The analogy to our spiritual lives and living is clear: there are those things we must die to, if we are to experience and enjoy the “larger world” out there. Altogether, it gives this coming Ash Wednesday and Lent a whole new meaning.
Of course, it all depends on how you look at it. The adjustments which a newborn makes: these we can choose to define as “birth.” The adjustments encouraged by Lenten examination: these we may choose to define as “death and dying.” For my part, though, I hate to separate the two: my,birth demands my dying, my dying invites new birth. It’s the tale of the newborn. It’s the profound mystery of Lent and Easter.
Yours, in the Pilgrimage of Lent and Easter,