For those of us who follow such things, yesterday marked the first Sunday of Lent.  Repentance and circumspection now dominate the religious imagination, as those so inclined spend ever more time pondering the exigencies within their lives, the fleeting puffs of materiality in which we have life and breath.  Life looks more remarkable than ever:  an authentic path to meaning.
     And it is.  Lent, however, demands that we look for ultimate meaning not in life itself, but in that from which life came.  Given the wonder of the world, it's easy to rejoice in life without also wondering why life is, why we have it, why this existence has been given to us.  To what end do we live?
     In its call to slow down, to meditate and consider, to let go of the immediate, at least for a while, Lent carves multiple inroads into this question, dissembling the perfunctory and expected and normal.  It calls us to not blast life apart without knowing what we are blasting it into, to cease striving for what will not last, and to relax, as the Psalmist says, in the reality of God (Psalm 46:10).  Lent invites us to look at what matters most.  Who will we really be when we leave this world?
     Need we really acknowledge larger realities in our earthly existence?  Only you can decide that.  One truth, however, will remain.  We will never escape the fact of our mortality.  Lent reminds us of our contingency.  It also reminds us that if the world is contingency only, the universe would never have had a reason to be.  And neither would we.
     Enjoy the journey.