(ANALYSIS) Lent, a period of spiritual reflection and preparation leading up to Easter, holds a rich history intertwined with religious freedom. This season, observed by Christians worldwide, invites believers to mimic Jesus's 40-day fast in the wilderness, a time often interpreted as a practice of making space.

Throughout history, Lent has been a time not only of personal introspection but also of societal transformation. Early Christians faced persecution and restrictions on openly practicing their faith. Yet the perseverance of these early believers paved the way for a diversity of practices that often thrived in the hidden spaces of the Roman Empire before Constantine’s conversion.

The concept of making space, crucial to Lenten practices, extends beyond personal reflection to encompass broader religious and spiritual freedom. This freedom includes the ability to hold and express sacred beliefs, both individually and collectively, within diverse political communities. It necessitates the accommodation of various faith traditions and spiritual paths, even amidst conflicting viewpoints.

READ: Illinois And South Carolina Rank Tops In Religious Liberty Index

Moreover, religious freedom entails freedom from state imposition of any one religion, ensuring that individuals can openly practice their beliefs in diverse ways. This foundational freedom underpins the essence of Lent and its call to create space for contemplation, prayer, and spiritual growth.

My family loves a picture book called “Make Room: A Child’s Guide to Lent and Easter” by Laura Alvary. Each year, as we have read this story to our young children, I become more aware of how the words and images are shaping my own heart. Alvary writes “Long ago, Jesus went out alone in the desert to get ready. … I wonder why Jesus went into the desert? Maybe it was quiet and still. … Maybe he needed time and space to listen so he would know which way to go.”

There is spiritual freedom in making space to be with God. And there is spiritual freedom in cultivating that space for others, particularly the individuals and groups with whom we most  disagree, to have the ability to manifest their own sacred beliefs and callings through every area of our lives.

The remainder of this article will explore how the freedom we have in Christ, manifested through His death and resurrection, can be experienced during Lent. While this experience can vary greatly for each individual and family, my own family, with young children, has discovered profound joy in this season of contemplative suffering and space-making through daily liturgies.

During these weeks of preparation and reflection, we have turned to spiritual practices grounded in the truth, goodness, and beauty of God's preparation, prayer, suffering, and death for us. I'd like to share a few examples that hold particular meaning for us, as they are both a product of our spiritual freedom in Christ and expressions of the religious freedom we gratefully receive.

The remainder of this article — the first of a two-part series on spiritual practices to embody our religious freedom this Lenten season — will explore how the freedom we have in Christ, manifested through His death and resurrection, can be experienced during Lent. While this experience can vary greatly for each individual and family, my own family, with young children, has discovered profound joy in this season of contemplative suffering and space-making through daily liturgies.

During these weeks of preparation and reflection, we have turned to spiritual practices grounded in the truth, goodness, and beauty of God's preparation, prayer, suffering, and death for us. I'd like to share a few examples that hold particular meaning for us in the context of art, as they are both a product of our spiritual freedom in Christ and expressions of the religious freedom we gratefully receive.

Freedom to create sacred art

Last year, our best friends and children’s godparents gifted our family with “The Art of Lent: A Painting A Day From Ash Wednesday To Easter” by Sister Wendy Beckett. This beautiful book, whose title is self explanatory, leads our family through brief, thoughtful, generally kid-friendly although not kid-centered, daily reflections on paintings that stirred the spiritual imagination toward various lenten themes. Although all the paintings focused on some element of making room for Christ’s entombment and resurrection in our hearts, one in particular captured this sentiment.

“A Rich Emptiness Queens House Greenwich Village,” by Ben Johnson (1978) encapsulates this mood. As Sister Beckett writes, this painting captures an emptiness that is itself pregnant with potential, a spiritual freedom from cohabiting with  a spiritual freedom to: “We are presented with a silent vista, not so much an invitation to advance through the arch and onwards as to stand motionless and simply contemplate. There is almost tangibly no sound, and what Johnson manages to suggest, implicitly, is that the richness is in the standing still, the non-acting. Contemplation is essentially a surrender to the holiness of divine mystery, whether we use those words or not.”  

Last year, my best friend Jomarie, who is an artist herself, invited us over many weekends during Lent for art sessions with our children. Together, we created everything from crosses to seasonal nature art, reflecting the anticipatory darkness before the springtime burst of new life. We made space for our children, providing them with open-ended, nature-based materials and the freedom to worship God through their art.

Over the last decade, I've had the chance to explore the writings of Roberta Ahmanson, a philanthropist who, along with her husband Howard, weaves together sacred art and religious freedom in her collecting, writing, and patronage. Recently, I revisited an Image Journal interview with Roberta Ahmanson from several years ago. In it, she subtly connects her love of visual arts with her early life experiences of cultivating space in God's world.

She shares, “I grew up with a lot of physical freedom, having the run of the town and living close to green spaces. I didn't realize how important that was to me until I moved to Southern California, where I lived in endless suburbia. Sometimes at night, I would drive to the desert or the ocean just to see space.”

This connection seems especially poignant during this Lenten season where we make room - carve out the freedom - to contemplate how Jesus’s own 40 day preparation and prayer took place against the wide open space of the desert. Through the Visual Commentary on Scripture initiative, one can find multiple years of lenten contemplations in the form of visual art.

“My Psalm 139: A Liturgical Installation” — a masterpiece by Makato Fujimura at All Saints Episcopal Church in Princeton during Lent of 2022 — features a striking diptych. This artwork comprises two expansive canvases, each stretching 12 feet (3.65 meters). Fujimura explains that the canvases “are layered in refractive, prismatic colours using ancient Nihonga (Japanese-style painting) mineral pigments on modern gesso.”

This piece, according to the artist, merges layered elements reminiscent of Mark Rothko's paintings with a contemporary sense of awe. It echoes the psalmist's words, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14), inviting viewers into a space of wonder and introspection. When I gaze upon this work, I contemplate the womb-ing element of the lenten season, harkening back to Psalm 139 and to the groaning labor pains into which St. Paul refers. This work, which the artist refers to as ‘slow art’ encapsulates a wombing space of preparation leading to the entombing of Jesus in our hearts, springing forth in the resurrection of the natural world into bloom and our hearts into full communion with a living God.

The womb is not an uncomplicated void but a pulsing, flesh-enmeshing communion of mother and child, Christ and church. It is both a potential and a reality already, existing in the now and yet to come. In this space, as represented through this work, we are invited to contemplate spaciousness not as the seeming hopelessness of a barren womb, but as the life-giving reality of the empty tomb from which new life has sprung forth. In this sacred paradox, we see the tomb, through Christ alone, as the womb of His Resurrection, as our womb, leading to the fullness of new birth and new life in Him.

This is where our sacred spiritual freedom is planted and grows. It exists within the sacred paradox of womb and tomb, life and death, now and not yet. This is the purpose of religious freedom: To encounter a new spiritual truth for the very first time or to drink from the sacred living waters of mercy for the thousandth time. And because all of humanity is an image-bearer, we each, from the time we are within our mother’s womb, require that spiritual and physical freedom to live, to seek out God for ourselves, to come freely back to Him, or to walk another spiritual path. Freedom, like the Lenten period before the resurrection, is fragile and uncertain.

Lent serves as a profound reminder of the spiritual freedom we have in Christ, mirrored in His death and resurrection. As we journey through this season of contemplation and preparation, we are invited to make space for God in our lives, just as Jesus did in the wilderness. This concept of making space extends beyond personal reflection to encompass broader religious and spiritual freedom, allowing individuals and communities to express their sacred beliefs and practices freely.

Through art and contemplation, we can cultivate this sacred space, nurturing a deeper connection with God and embracing the richness of religious freedom. May this Lenten season be a time of renewal and transformation, as we embrace the freedom to seek, create, and express our faith in diverse and beautiful ways.

Chelsea Langston Bombino is a believer in sacred communities, a wife and a mother. She serves as a program officer with the Fetzer Institute and a fellow with the Center for Public Justice.