Lenctening days
No, that’s not a typo.
Recently I learned that the word “Lent” comes from the Old
English ‘lencten,’ which sounds a lot like “lengthen” and, not
incidentally, was the Old English word for Spring–-that time when the
days, well, lengthen.
Despite the admiration
I’ve always had for traditional Lenten disciplines, this time of
year–-when I forget to start dinner on time because the growing evening
light tricks me, when I’m drawn from sleep by the unexpected brightness
of the morning sun–-this time of year tends to make me a bit giddy.
Meditating on dust returning to dust seems opposite to how I feel when spring is, well, lenctening. Springing.
