And So Lent Begins

It's Ash Wednesday.  And the beginning of Lent.  Time to put away the beads and the fat of Shrove Tuesday, and live a leaner, more reflective life.

Lent is a time of contemplation and reflection, the forty days (excluding Sundays)  leading up to Easter and the Resurrection.  It is a  tradition practiced by many churches, including Anglican and Catholic churches, and is at least recognized to one degree or another by a good number of other churches.

It is a time of prayers, reflection and atonement.  We have a family devotional that we intend to use, that offers a bible quote, a short commentary, and a prayer, for every day of Lent.  Our church also has Wednesday evening Lenten services that will be difficult for me to get to, but I think that Alison and Benjamin may try to attend.  We will be doing the Stations of the Cross on Friday afternoons, an important ritual that takes you step by step through the final days leading to Easter.

It is a time for fasting and sacrifice.  The church Wednesday suppers are soup.  There may be some missed or stepped back meals throughout Lent.

Coming during tax season, the sacrifice part has always been  a little tricky to figure out, as I am already giving up quite a bit.  The point is to get in better tune with Christ.  It does not necessarily have to be something you give up - it may be something that just puts you more in Christ, and being a faithful servant.

It could be adding another level of prayer or devotion.  I started reading a chapter a day of the bible during Lent one year, and it continued through the many months it took to get through the whole bible (including the apocrypha).  I read it including some commentary found in the Oxford Bible.

It could be something you do to be a better steward in Christ.  Giving more of yourself to a worthy cause, helping those in need, becoming the hands and feet of Christ in serving the needs of your community, stepping up your financial commitment - these are all ways to participate in the spirit of Lent.

It could be a sacrifice of something that you enjoy, something to sharpen your sense of surrender and purpose, a very small measure of the sacrifice Jesus made.  It could be a food item, or category of foods.  In various years I have given up Colas, pizzas, sweets, etc.  I joke that I will give up tax returns for Lent, but somehow that never seems to work out.

This year, I am stepping down my participation in social media.  If you are connected to me through it, I will still post from my blog, maintain the Writer's Guild, and continue with the Song of the Day.  I will happily answer private messages and e-mails.  It may not seem like much, but for someone with mild selective mutism, written social media is my dominant way of interacting with people.

I got a few Facebook posts off my chest last night, in preparation for the drought.  About the really repulsive way some on the right have been glorifying Putin as a strong leader to contrast with Obama being a weak leader.....watching the right and my conservative friends scramble to object to whatever the President does...trying to scope out whatever position is the opposite of his.  About my quixotic journey to get an Obamacare hater to come up with a coherent plan to cover and protect MILLIONS of Americans with health insurance....I have been asking this question for months and have had no takers...it is so much easier to snipe from the sidelines than to come up with something concrete....and they have so much trouble because we already have the REPUBLICAN plan, which Obamacare largely is...to go further right is a descent into madness and cruelty, into the abyss of Ayn Randian Social Darwinism.  About my quest to get comic books to use whole numbers...okay that one is probably gonna take too long to explain...trust me, it's important to me.

Anyways, may your Lenten season be one of devotion and reflection, an important part of your faith journey, as you discover how best to be the hands and feet of Christ!

Peace be with you!