Lent brings Freedom

I realized today, as I was eating my sun-dried tomato and basil hummus, that my world, at least dietary speaking, is going to be opened wide by the end of this Lent season. Sure, Lent is not actually all that related to your literal diet, but it got me thinking about the irony of Lent being a time to OPEN my world. Don't we normally think of Lent as limiting? We limit what we eat. We limit what we watch. We limit what we think about. We limit what we listen to. And yet, but putting those limits on my diet, I'm actually expanding my palate by force. But not really by force, because it's completely voluntary. I just really like that ironic twist to Lent -- you deny yourself to free yourself. We die to live. Jesus talks about this. Appropriate. Everything is related.

My iPod was on shuffle today, on the playlist of "Kid tested, Lenten approved" music. And Shostakovich Symphony No. 5, Third movement came on. It's a haunting piece. You should check it out. It's not automatically easily accessible, I realize. But it is haunting. That's the most appropriate word I can think of.