Weekly Insights
What church leaders need to know about young people, Valentine's Day, and Ash Wednesday.
Stat of the Day:
71% of young people (ages 13-39) agree that “Valentine’s Day is mostly a good opportunity to tell my friends and family that I love and appreciate them” (YPulse)
Why It Matters:
There has been a veritable deluge of think pieces over the past month in leading outlets about how one should celebrate Valentine’s Day given its conflict with that most solemn of holy days—Ash Wednesday.* But if most young people believe Valentine’s Day is about expressing love and appreciation for close friends and family, then there need not be any conflict (except, perhaps, for clergy whose date nights are definitively ruined).
The heart of Ash Wednesday is a remembrance of our mortality (“remember, you are dust, and to dust you shall return”) and repentance for our sin. It is right and good to do this before God and the believing community. We can also do this before others in more intimate and personal ways.
Step number 9 in 12-step programs is to make direct amends to all the people one has harmed, and it is a step that causes angst for many: how can I make amends? What can be done to patch up the breach in this relationship? The complications of past relational damage and personal responsibility make this an especially difficult and time-consuming step.
Try It:
In the Spirit of Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday, consider encouraging your congregants to confess their sins and offenses to one another in more direct ways, seeking amends as they do so. This need not require a confessional booth, anonymity, and a highly detailed discussion of the myriad and sundry ways that one has fallen short (NB: while we should encourage liturgical rites of reconciliation, we need not limit the confession of sin to such contexts). Instead, such a confession can focus on those ways in which our brokenness has directly impacted our relationships with others, caused harm, or alienated the people we care about most in this life.
This angle on sin and repentance can be a meaningful way of inviting young people into the spirit of Lent without an excessive amount of inner self-flagellation: how has my brokenness impacted my behavior, and how have those behaviors hurt the ones I love the most? How can I make amends to that person, seeking peace and reconciliation in my relationships with others? This Lent, let’s encourage one another to a repentance that moves from our broken relationship to God to our broken relationships with one another.
*Note: satire. This author has seen no such articles beyond the very-niche religious website and blogosphere.