Dressing in sackcloth for Tet

Here we are, once again in Ordinary Time, approaching the third Sunday after Epiphany. This Sunday's readings in Jonah 3 and Mark 1 talk to us about turning from life as we know it. In Mark, the first disciples were called to walk away from their nets, away from their vocation, in order to follow Jesus. This is not an easy decision to make -- to leave everything that they are familiar with and to immerse themselves in something completely new, and strange, and mysterious.

And the people of Nineveh were called to stop their current way of life, to put on sackcloth and fast and pray. Those things that they have always done, well, they've got to stop. Things can't continue the way they have been going. There must be change, and visible change at that.

These actions of turning away are not unfamiliar to me. I see these (re)enactments most often at the beginning of the new year when we make new resolutions and we promise ourselves that we're going to start afresh (eat more healthful foods, exercise more, pray more, recycle more, etc.)

This Sunday is also the end of the lunar year, and as we embark upon the new lunar year -- Tet Ky Suu - we remember the traditions of Tet Nguyen Dan: dress in your fineries, light up those firecrackers, forget old debts, clean and paint the house, make things new, etc. These things that we've always done serve to remind us of what is to come -- the spring that rejuvenates and refreshes. Ironic, right? They remind us of who we are as a people of very unique and diverse cultural traditions, and they remind us of who we can become as a nation, as one global tribe.

As Tet nears, I feel more and more nostalgic and I want to participate in these traditions. I'm reminded that I need to turn away from the old ways, to let go of this past year -- the mistakes and mishaps, the missed opportunities -- forget them all like forgetting the old debts, like forgetting the nets that might have trapped me in the old lifestyle. I also need to put on new clothes -- let them be fabrics of brilliant firecracker red or torn and dry sackcloth -- whatever they are, they should remind me of making a definitive turning away and turning toward newer things -- a release and freedom that will motivate me to live life to the fullest, to use my life just like Jonah was finally willing to do.