My house: 71 Park Street Built 1915
I’ve never lived in a house built more recently than 1920. Sure there were a few college dorm rooms or apartments along the way, but every place I’ve ever called home has been home to many people before me. Maybe that’s why I’m so drawn to the HGTV Show “Rehab Addict.” The host, Nicole Curtis, she has a thing for old homes too. (But her interest goes far beyond just liking old homes.) Nicole likes to see old homes shine like new–although she probably wouldn’t use the word ‘new’ to describe it herself. Each season she takes an old home that hasn’t felt love in a long time, cleans it up, polishes it off, and restores it to it’s original beauty.
But Nicole’s not the only one with a season for making old things new again. This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday. It’s a day in the church year that starts the beginning of our own season of renewal. We all know what happens to houses when they aren’t constantly maintained, but isn’t the same true for our personal lives? For our spiritual lives? Dust collects figuratively and literally as our Bibles sit on their shelves. Our spirits feel the stagnant air of complacency. We hide behind the allure of routine while our souls long for God to do something new. Our lives, once fruitful and beautiful and full of life, begin to resemble death. The baptismal water that once marked our new life in Christ is now only recognizable by the water stains from old leaks and traumas. We sit while our facade masks the sin we feel within until it too bears the marks. And then, to add insult to injury, instead of being told we look great (as we have become so accustomed), we are jarred awake with a harsh reminder as a pastor smears ash on our foreheads proclaiming, “Remember you are dust.” And instantly we are aware of how far we have fallen.
But that is not the end. Well, it is the end, sort of, but it’s not the end because for us the end is a new beginning. Every house Nicole Curtis rehabbed was on someone else’s list to condemn. Every house she restores, many others thought were dust and to dust needed to return. But from the rubble she brought those homes new life, and so too the season of Lent starts by reminding us of our state, but that is not where it leaves us. Through our Lenten disciplines of fasting, almsgiving, and prayer we are rehabbed. Layers of paint from years of hiding our pain are stripped only to reveal something more beautiful than we remember. Our builder, our architect, our spiritual designer goes to work on us and makes us shine like new.