“It’s a simple idea, that we can check our own spiritual pulse, that we can take responsibility for our connection to ourselves and to the Divine.
This, I believe, is the gift of Lent, which our spiritual ancestors gave us when the Church calendar was created over the course of hundreds of years. Lent exists, not to be a moment of forced piety, or an attempt at sacrificing enough to please an angry deity. It is not an obligation, or even a yearly tradition. Lent is an invitation to check our pulse.
God doesn’t need Lent. There’s no commandment in scripture to follow a particular sacred calendar. Lent has no foundation in any scriptural stories. All time is sacred to the Holy One so Lent doesn’t exist for God. It’s for us. Humans need shared sacred moments, spaces, and calendar days. What Lent provides is a season in each year where we’re invited to pause, to check our spiritual pulse, to ask the Holy Spirit what is most needed, and listen for whatever next right thing God is inviting us to move toward.”
~Misha Boyett