Spring Cleaning for the Soul (written to appear in the Millbrook Independent)

Millbrook has recently been awash in Mardi Gras festivities.  Our community was blessed to have over 11,000 attendees at the Mardi Gras parade.  The village green was packed with good family fun, rides, food, and community spirit.  Our church had over 300 runners for our Mardi Gras run for youth missions.  Mardi Gras in Millbrook has very carefully been maintained as a family-friendly, fun celebration.

Unfortunately, certain excesses in other Mardi Gras celebrations have caused the festival to get a bad name.  Mardi Gras is primarily a religious festival.  It means “Fat Tuesday,” and ought to be celebrated on the tuesday before Ash Wednesday.  This year, Mardi Gras is February 12 and Ash Wednesday is February 13.  The day is designed to be a day to clean out the cupboards and enjoy some gaiety in anticipation of the Lenten fast.  

Lent encompasses the forty days (not counting Sundays) between Ash Wednesday and Easter.  One way to think of the purpose of Lent is to think of it as spring cleaning for the soul.  We clean our homes every day, but once a year we open the windows, vacuum under the couch, and scrub all the corners we ignore the rest of the year.  Of course, we should always be self-reflective, repentant, and focused on spiritual disciplines.  But Lent provides us a time to recommit, to look at the man in the mirror, and to take stock of our lives and motives in an intentional way.  It gives us an opportunity to emphasize our relationship to God, to have an annual retreat of the heart alone in the wilderness with Jesus.

Mardi Gras tells us that there are times for celebration and rejoicing, laughter and dancing, even responsible revelry, dressing up in bright colors and celebrating the gifts of the good life God has given us.  But Mardi Gras is followed immediately by Lent, a reminder that there are also times to confront ourselves and be willing to be courageously honest, to change direction when needed and get alone with our God to allow our hearts to be renewed.

As you clean out the cupboards, as you clean out the cobwebs, take time to allow your heart to be cleaned out, too.