decisions for the lenten road

photo © 2007 Davide Restivo (via: Wylio)I didn't make it to the Ash Wednesday service after all.  Well, I walked into the Sanctuary, but The Boy immediately started crying, so I walked right back out.  The Girl stayed - because she wanted to!  She was intrigued by the ashes, I think, and she came home with an ash cross on her forehead, though her daddy said it took her a while to decide whether or not to go up for one.

I didn't, then, decide on my Lenten discipline until Thursday.  Close enough, right?  I picked two, actually.  Two disciplines - no fasting.  I'm going to try to be more aware of what I put in my mouth and more careful about what comes out of it, but I decided not to actually fast from anything. 

Instead, I'm going to try to pray the divine hours.  Well, three of them - morning, midday and evening.  I was a little worried about this one, as My Man has absconded with our Common Prayer book (which he did buy, I must admit), but a friend showed me that all of the prayers are also online.  Hallelujah!  Still, I've already failed at this lenten discipline.  I completely forgot about it last night.  It never even occurred to me.  *sigh*  But there is grace for the road, and I take one more step forward today.

My second discipline is this: I commit (fearfully) to making/writing/donating something for someone else every day of Lent.  Strange, right?  But the idea is that this commitment will draw me closer to Jesus on my walk with Him by challenging two of my weaknesses: lack of discipline and tendency to hoard. 

I spend a lot of time in my head every day - thinking, thinking, thinking.  But I lack follow-through.  Oh, I follow through on some things, but I also tend to get home from the office, plop into a chair and read a book.  Or watch TV in the evenings.  Neither of which is a bad thing, but they are distracting things.  I am easily distracted from more important work and service.  I can hear some of you saying, "But you should have rest and fun and not work all the time."  Yes, that's true.  But I should work and serve some of the time.

I also spend a lot of time worrying about money - paying the bills, saving for retirement, thinking about saving for college, etc.  I am naturally a saver, and it bothers me when I feel like there's not enough to save for the future, for the unexpected.  But I am well aware that my worry is ridiculous.  I tend to operate out of a fear of scarcity, when I should be acting out of abundance.  I have an abundance.  So, so very much.  So this Lent I am going to practice giving rather than saving.

My favorite online Lenten reflection so far is this one by Jan Edmiston at A Church for Starving Artists. An exerpt:

The level of sacrifice that God is asking for is not about giving up something we love for the sake of removing a pleasure from our lives. It's about giving up what is methodically destroying us from the inside out. And we hold each other's hands as we make these difficult choices to do something excruciating for the sake of saving our lives.

First we need to figure out what it is that's killing us: greed? workaholism? alcohol? porn? bitterness? anger? At the very least, Lent is a good time to figure out what's keeping us from being fully alive and healthy. It will probably take more than 40 days, but this is a start.

What is keeping me from being fully alive and healthy?  Greed.  Laziness.  Ingratitude.  And more.  It will definitely take longer than 40 days to overcome these, but each day I will try to take a step along the road toward resurrection.