It has long been a Lentan Discipline to give something up for Lent. I know some people who give up chocolate – boy was that hard when Valentine’s Day fell during Lent one year! This has roots in being penitent, and trying to make amends for past actions. So, one might give up those things that are having a bad impact upon ourselves or others.
However, in my experience, this often implies going back to doing the things I shouldn’t be doing once more after Easter comes (i.e. eating chocolate again).
But what if we took a slightly different approach? What if we focused instead upon how we wanted to relate to God, to ourselves and to others – and worked at forming practices that help make that a reality? For instance, we might ask ourselves these questions (or others like them):
- What does it mean to live a just and compassionate life?
- What dreams/desires do I have that keep reoccurring like an ocean swell? In what ways are they a “calling” from God?
- How am I interconnected to the web of all life? How does my life show this?
- In the living of my day to day life, how are what I hold true acted out – put into practice?
- And inversely, how does the way I live my life, really point to what I really believe about things, not what I want to (or say) I believe? (For instance, one might say that generosity is very important characteristic, but when the hat is passed at work to purchase flowers to celebrate a co-workers a new baby, one doesn’t contribute.)
- Is there a spiritual practice I’ve been longing to take up again, or start new, that might help to shape me in an on going way?
- Is there something that I need to “set aside” so that I can “pick up” something else? (It is helpful to set down the hammer and chisel before picking up the saw to cut a board. 😉 )
I do think that we are called to live holy lives, and to help create a holy society: one based on compassion tempered with justice. How we live our lives matters.
Lent provides a time and a space (if we are willing) to reflect upon our habits, and a chance to create some new ones as we move into what it means to live as Resurrection People.
This year for Lent I have decided to take up sketching again as a daily practice. I’m not sure why I dropped this a year or so ago, but I’m going to use Lent as a time to re-engage with sketching as a way of seeing the world.
What are you going to put down so that you can take up something? What are you going to take up?
Blessed Be,
Rev. Joel
PS – if you look under Resources in the above Header (or just click on the link), you will find a Worship Liturgy for an Ash Wednesday Service.
Currently reading Art Before Breakfast; Dare to Sketch; and Pen & Ink Drawing
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(This is an updated post from the old Winds of Grace Blog.)