Today marks the first day of Lent in the Orthodox tradition. During Clean Week, the first week of Lent, extra attention is paid to silence. God spoke to Elijah in the gentle breeze (1 Kings 19:9-18), in a whisper, so reducing noise, be it our own, or the music and podcasts so many of us listen to 24/7, is essential to opening ourselves up to the whisper of God.
I am not a priest, so not only do I lack the skills required for a homily, it would be out of place for me to. I bring up Lent for this reason and this reason alone: so many of you gremlins are concerned about doing something. Every personality has some branding, even if it is unintentional, and while I feel uncomfortable about the idea of being “a personality”, I am, and thus I have some branding. Part of that branding is that at Scattered Roses, we pride ourselves on offering concrete solutions to the problems of today, instead of rehearsing the same right-wing talking points that every other “personality” does. We put forward policy, and explain how elections can be won, with the aid of polling data and internal party memos. You expect this from me, and I try and deliver.
Doing something is not always electoral politics. Most of the time it is not. We live in an ugly world. There is lots of good, I see it on a first hand basis every day, but we live in a time where corporate interests are aligned with communist subversives who desire nothing less than the complete erasure of Christianity and Western Civilization. With this realization comes a choice: either despair, or try and bring light to the darkness. Now we get to Lent. Lent is an opportunity for all of us to become holier. We will still sin, we will still make mistakes, but if we go 1%, Christ will go the other 99%. Taking a period of forty days to intensify prayer, practice silence, deny ourselves our desires (which is a training against narcissism and for empathy), to go to church more regularly, and to give alms, all of this will make us more like Him whom we follow. I know not all of you are Orthodox, many of you are Catholic or Protestants, but this applies to everyone who is observing this year. We have different traditions, and we will celebrate the Resurrection on a different date, in a different way, but together we can all strive to be the light that the world so desperately needs.
We have to remember two very important things. First, this is Christ’s work, not ours. On our own we are incapable of being holy. A saint is someone who does the work of God, which means the saint’s work is not really his or her work, but the work of his or her master. Let us not think that because we abstain from meat that we are any better than those who do not, or that we were able to do so by any means other than Christ’s Grace. Second, this is a corporate endeavor. It is I, Rose the individual, who am struggling to be more like Christ, but Rose the member of the Church, who is struggling with his brothers and sisters. Support one another, pray with each other. Let everyone you meet know you are Christ’s because of your love, your patience, and your forgiveness. Be not simply the equal but opposite force to the darkness, but the overwhelmingly stronger and opposite force.
*For those who have the Substack app, I will be starting a Lenten thread to provide a place for encouragement over the next forty days*