There was a post on Facebook asking what everyone was going to give up for Lent. A woman posted “I don’t think I have the bandwidth this year. I’m just going to try and be a patient mom and get everyone through this.”

When I tell you that I felt this in my bones, I mean that I levitated off my bed. For the rest of my life I will be jealous that I did not say it first: Lent 2021 is cancelled.

Mostly because Lent 2020 NEVER ENDED.

For a year we have been victims of not only this illness, but the jackasses around us, which also forced a roll call over this question: WHO KNEW THERE WERE SO MANY?  My whole life I’ll never forget the way they forced us to sacrifice meaningful life events at the altar of their self-righteousness and callous disregard for the lives of others.

We won’t get back the time we spent trying to reason with them before we realized we were throwing good words after bad into a giant wind tunnel of stubborn, willful, privileged ignorance.

I am joking about this, kind of, because if I really opened up it would overwhelm me.

I know how serious it has been, every day since this time last year. I see the numbers of dead. I know that we are still in it, which means we have not yet begun to reap what was sown in the hearts and psyches of the first responders, medical personnel, teachers, parents. Our kids. The decision makers who just tried to do what was right with the information they had while the peanut gallery screamed for their heads on platters.

This is my point. Like the mom said, we are out of bandwidth. We have been sacrificing so long that we are numb to hope. I hear more and more people talking about “our new normal” like we are post- apocalypse and counting down to the zombies. A traditional Lent with a focus on guilt, denial and sin could push us into despair.

So, nuh-uh. Not doing it. Maybe you can. Go along then.

But over here, we will turn our faces to the light. Easter is coming and our Lenten reflection will be this: Our great, glorious, loving, mighty and ever-faithful God is God in the valley AND on the mountains.

And after a long, scary, tense and uncertain year, we are climbing, sisters.