A Collective Practice: A Light in the Darkness
At sunset, wherever you are, light a candle. Let the flame be small, quiet—nothing grand or elaborate. Just a flicker of light in the fading day.
As you watch it glow, whisper a prayer. It does not need to be long. It does not need to be certain. Simply offer what is stirring within you—the grief you carry, the hope you hold, the questions that remain unanswered.
Know that others are doing the same. Scattered across different places, yet united in this moment. A quiet communion of light and longing.
Lent does not ask us to resolve everything. It simply invites us to hold what is real. Tonight, we hold it together.
Thursday: Carrying Both Hope and Grief
Daily Lesson: The Tension We Carry
Lent does not ask us to choose between joy and sorrow. It does not offer a path of certainty or a clean break between the things we long for and the things we grieve. Instead, it holds both—stretching us, teaching us how to bear the weight of what is unresolved.
We are drawn toward resolution. We want to grieve fully before we allow ourselves to hope, or to grasp hope tightly so we do not have to grieve at all. But Lent tells us the truth—they are not separate things.
Jesus lived in this tension.
The same hands that broke bread in love trembled in anguish. The same voice that called the dead to life would cry out in forsakenness. The same feet that walked toward the outcast also walked toward the cross.
This is what it means to be human—to make space for both.
Lent does not force us to resolve what cannot be resolved. It invites us to hold what is real.
And today, we pause to notice what we are carrying.
Not to fix it. Not to force an ending. But to honor the weight of what is unfinished in us.
Sacred Invitation: The Weight of Water
Wash your hands slowly.
Feel the water move over your skin—the way it lingers before disappearing, the way it carries away what was there a moment ago.
Let this be a quiet reminder.
What does it mean to be cleansed?
To be held?
To release what we cannot yet see?
Embodied Practice: Holding & Releasing
Find two small objects—a stone, a leaf, a piece of paper—something that fits in your hands.
Let one represent hope. Let the other represent grief.
Hold them both. Feel their weight.
Notice which one feels heavier, which one you instinctively want to cling to.
Hold them a little longer than feels comfortable. Let yourself feel what it is to carry both.
Then, when you are ready, open your hands.
Not to let go forever. Not to force release.
Simply to rest in the truth that even when we do not grasp them, they remain.
Closing Reflection: A Question to Carry
What in your life refuses to be only one thing?
Where do hope and grief meet in you?
Let the question be enough.