The Lenten Crow
As I assume it is for most partners in the same industry, Paul and I have some very niche home conversations.
As we approached Lent several years ago, we found ourselves wondering why popular culture hadn’t come up with a notable figure to represent the season of Lent. You have the classics of Santa Claus for Christ’s birth and the Easter Bunny for the resurrection. More recently, Elf on the Shelf has taken up Advent, Mensch on a Bench for Hanukkah. But no love for Lent!
We decided that if someone could represent the season of Lent, it would have to be a crow.
This is the legend we wrote:
Tradition tells us that the Lenten Crow accompanies us on our Lenten journey, a somber, compassionate, and sometimes dryly snarky presence in our spiritual wilderness. Unlike Elf on the Shelf, the Lent Crow is not a snitch.
The Lenten Crow is like a gentle, weird friend. They also sometimes bestow Lenten blessings when things are rough, such as when a worship pastor's car breaks down on Ash Wednesday.
The Lenten Crow reigns in the 40 days and 40 nights before the Easter Bunny appears. The Lenten Crow is not active on Sundays, out of respect for the Bunny.
Let me emphasize that the Lenten Crow comes completely out of five minutes of the Richards-Kuan imagination. And, it is with some pride that the characteristics of the Lenten Crow are theologically relevant, unlike any of its counterparts.
Its black uniform matches the somber, plain atmosphere of Lent, its jarring caw akin to the spiritual truths we find when we bare our souls to the Divine in our wilderness. Its uncomfortable companionship is essential: much like a community journeying through Lent, we are unsettled, but we are unsettled together. The crow is also a reminder that God has created and works with all sorts.
What could be more ‘Lent’ than a rough-around-the-edges crow encouraging us through our spiritual life and reminding us that we are loved by God?
During the Lent that the Lenten Crow was first dreamed, we’d leave small gifts on people’s desks with notes like, “From the Lenten Crow. This is really hard. You’re doing great.”
We sometimes need new words or symbols to communicate the truths we speak every day: that we have companionship in the difficult times, that discomfort is not bad but it is hard, that God will always send us reminders that we are loved. That season, the Lenten Crow was a silly way to pull our office through a particularly difficult Lent.
Today, I invite you to use your own creativity. If you or someone you know are looking at a difficult season ahead, how can you find companionship or be their companion? What ways can you see or help someone else see the truths that we know in our minds but don’t always feel in our hearts?
This Lent, we are going to journey to Jerusalem as we do each year. However, it will be through a different person than usual (no, not the Lenten Crow). Our wandering spiritual journey will be perfectly complemented by the wanderings of the disciple Peter.
Peter is both “steadfast and unsteady, a dear friend and a betrayer, a follower and a wanderer.” Peter’s own faith journey and the words of Come Thou Fount will guide us through the season, binding our wandering hearts to God.
Little parts of Peter’s journey will be incorporated into many areas of the church, including Stations of Peter that will be available for your reflection starting the second week of Lent.
As Kate Bowler has said, I pray that at the start of this Lent you’ll take it not as a self-improvement challenge but as an invitation to sit with what is fragile and let grace sneak in through the cracks.
Welcome to Lent, friends.
With all the blessings of the Lenten Crow,
Pastor Karyn