Second-hand stores report that donations of clothing and household goods are way up possibly because people are Kondo-izing – emptying their homes of the things which no longer “spark joy.” It remains to be seen whether this year’s Kondo-izer’s will be back with another load of clutter next year. Did getting rid of the unnecessary things enable them to live differently or was it simply a way of making room so they could collect more stuff? A similar question faces us at the end of Lent: will we start Lent next year with the same old clutter?
Some people are very good at Lent. For them, it is a 40 day marathon of privation and an exercise in self-control. Once the 40 days are over, they take back the stuff they gave up. It’s a good exercise, but it does not get us to an Easter moment. We get to an Easter moment only if a Lenten discipline has helped us to see that something was taking up a lot of space in our lives which was just clutter and we become willing to let it go and leave it behind. If we can close the door on that clutter, another door will open.
Lent helps us see what is clutter; then we need to let it go and leave it behind.
Easter Sunday will come on April 21 this year. It’s a great celebration but it is not the same thing as an Easter moment. Easter moments will arrive when we least expect them, maybe as glimmers of an insight or as an “aha” as loud as a trumpet fanfare. They will arrive when and how they will. We may barely feel ready, but ready we will be, because we kept a Lent. We got rid of the clutter: we left it behind and closed the door on it. Without a doubt, another door will open.
Happy Easter.