Ash Wednesday: Here We Go Again For The First Time

I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to travel to the Holy Land four times.  On occasion friends who know I've made multiple trips will ask if the trips are different from each other.  The problem they are imagining is that the itinerary for each trip is the same and that after two or three times it would begin  to get old.
I have two answers to this question.  First, it is different each time.  While there are certain places that have been stops on the tour each time, there have been places that are new and different each time - there is always something new that I couldn't have anticipated.  Second, if each time was exactly the same, with the same trips and you told me I could go do that trip tomorrow, I'd be ready to go.  Even the same place has something different to tell and to teach.  Stan Ott, Presbyterian visionary, calls it the "chemistry of the company" - the idea that each time you are with a group of people it is a unique moment of time to be valued - that group may never be configured just like that again.  Each time I've made the trip I've shared the journey with different folks and each group has brought out different insights and added different experiences.  Revisiting the familiar does not mean there is nothing new to be gained in the visit.
Which brings me to Ash Wednesday.  As the church calendar cycles around we come again to Ash Wednesday, the front door to the season of Lent.  It is easy to feel like we've walked through this door before and that this is just another trot through the familiar paces which will bring us back again to Holy Week and Easter.  But we know better.
We know that each time through the door of Ash Wednesday is unique and that each Lenten season of reflection is new and different.  Your traveling companions are unique to 2013.  Your life experiences have you in a place you have never been to before.  What it means for each one of us to ask God to grant us a clean heart and a new and right spirit is not the same as it was last year or in 2004 or in 1989.
The Lenten journey is a gift.  It is a gift which for many is familiar and one which we have opened in the past, perhaps many, many times.  Make no mistake though - this one is brand new.  One of my favorite quotes on history comes from Kurt Vonnegut.  "History is merely a list of surprises.  It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again."  As we make this journey through Lent I am hopeful that we will be open to the surprise of God's love, care and forgiveness in ways that are particular to our lives at this very moment in time.

(The pictures below are of the Judean wilderness between Jerusalem and Jericho. It is an example of one such surprise.  We stopped on the side of the old Roman road between the two cities and piled off the bus and on to a path that led first to this view - our guide, Jimmy, described it as "the valley of the shadow of death" - and then to a view of an amazing place we had not seen before from so close. A monastery, literally carved into the side of the hills.  Epic stuff.  A grand surprise.)