Ash Wednesday has come to be a marker-point each year for me. It begins a season I look forward to (and fear)... Lent.
I did not grow up Catholic, so Lent is a bit of a new thing for me... something that I've only really discovered in my adult life. But it has been a formative thing these last couple a few years.
Lent is an opportunity each year to work out of my system some form of unhealth, whether it be spiritual unhealth, physical unhealth, both, all, whatever. It's a chance to release something for 40 days to focus on something else. And at the end of the 40 days, it's a chance to re-negotiate one's relationship with that thing.
Holly is going to attempt a more additive approach this year. I might stick to my nominal subtractive formula.
Will has some comments on Lenten Practices. He says This year in community we will also be practicing a proactive discipline. So, instead of simply denying ourselves something, we will be seeking to actively do something that strengthens our ties to our community, whatever that community might be.
1 comment:
A few years ago my father suggested I practice Morning and Evening Prayer for lent (from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer) it takes 20-30 minutes each morning and evening.
It involves reading scripture, time for meditation and reflection, and time to say some of the most beatiful collects (prayers) written in English.
For me it helped move past my understanding of lent as a time for guilt and towards lent as a time of purification and santification to celebrate easter each year.
I hope whatever you do it brings you more into the rhythem of Christ.
Nate
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