It is just another bleary January Monday morning. In my best internal Eeyore voice, I find myself saying “well, here we are again, my least favorite month of the year.” I could add any number of thoughts to that, all of them dreary: How grey it is outside, how much the cold makes me feel my age, how little I like snow and ice ruining my plans, how the world seems to have lost its Christmas sparkle, how we are all grappling with another year of ageing and another year of accumulated cynicism. For me, January has an additional layer of drear as God in his eternal sense of humor thought it would be amusing to place my birthday smack in the middle of my least favorite month. One of my priest friends likes to say, “God is good, even if annoying.”

So here we are again, another January, and my internal voice again sounds like Eeyore, and something in me cannot help pondering the cold and the damp and the grey along with my own age and mortality and adding that to the lengthening shadow of the upcoming Lenten fast. Memento mori. Here I sit, smashed between the sparkle of the Incarnation and the smudgy smear of ashes to come, and as awkward as that is, it is the place God puts each of us all the time.

The Catechism of the Anglican Church in North America asks early on that the reader consider the question: “What is the way of death?” As early catechism questions go, it’s a pretty terrible handshake. “Oh, hello, nice to meet you. Welcome to Anglicanism. By the way, what is the way of death?” Can we talk about life first? Oh sure, if you must, but death is right up front, in your face, personal. You cannot avoid it. It is everywhere. So, what, if you don’t mind my asking, is the way of death? I do not recommend this topic of conversation for first dates, first meetings with the in-laws-to-be, first day on the job, or first anything, but there it is in the catechism right after the human condition (pretty grey and dreary), the Gospel (oh thanks be to God), and the cheery question of “How does sin affect you?” If the catechism was your New Year’s resolution, happy January.

Actually, Eeyore, it’s not all grey and drear. The Bible often describes our human experience as a choice between two paths, the way of life and the way of death. In Deuteronomy 30, Moses lays the choice before the people of Israel: “I have set before you today life and good, death and evil… I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore, choose life, that you and your offspring may live” (Deut. 30:15-19). It is the first ray of light on this grey landscape; the way of death is not the only way. Life is a choice within our grasp. God sets both before us.

Jesus used similar language when he told us to “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Mt. 7:13-14). The second century Didache again echoes the same words, “There are two ways, one of life and one of death, and great is the difference between the two ways” (Didache 1.1).¹

Often, we interpret these two ways as only resulting in life or death, heaven or hell. We think only of the destination but fail to notice the path itself. In fact, the path matters. It is important to inspect the path, see and accept the darkness in which we have traveled, in order to understand the destination. The pathway of death is littered with darkness and misery as much as it leads toward condemnation. While the path itself may seem wide and smooth, the pain of a life without God is debilitating.

Fourth century theologian, Ephrem the Syrian described the way of death as being “mired in the pride of our mind as if with our feet in the mud, we did not perceive our error because our soul was unable to see itself. Although we would look [into the mirror] each day, we would ‘grope around’ in the dark ‘like blind men.’ Our inner mind did not possess that which is necessary for discernment.”² Part of the struggle of having our feet mired in the mud of the “way of death” is that we so rarely have the presence of mind to examine our situation and turn our feet to the other path. Sin and death are too intimately tied to our world, like fish who do not understand the water in which they swim, we are usually unaware of the way of sin and death.

Therein lies the beauty of this grey season between the warm glowing fire of the Incarnation and the ashes of Lent. While there remains a little light on the path, however distant a memory it is, it illumines the pitfalls and miseries of the road, the mud and mire in which we are stuck, just enough to begin to pull our feet from the mire and look around for another road. It is a miserable sight to behold, but a necessary one. It makes sense, in this respect, that the catechetical handshake has such cold fingertips in the early placement of the question. We cannot experience the light until we have seen our darkness.

Once Lent begins, we will be all to eager to see the destination, the Easter joy, the Resurrection, the renewed light of spring and hope, but in these fading grey January days, it is not the destination but the road that matters. Examine the way of death; see the mire and litter of what has come before. However, remember that there are two ways, life and death. Examine death with unflinching eyes. Death, after all does not win in the end, we need not be frightened to look it in the eye. Only then, eyes wide open, can we choose the narrow gate of life.

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1. Whitacre, Rodney (trans). Patristic Greek Reader. Peabody MA: Hendrickson Publishing, 2008. p. 197.
2. Ephrem the Syrian. “Letter to Publius.” Cited in: Lienhard, Joseph T., Ronnie J. Rombs, and Thomas C. Oden. Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 2001. p. 323.