Lent begins
This week, we began Lent on Ash Wednesday. Lent is, as the prayer book says, “a season of penitence and fasting.” People have often lived this out by giving up something for Lent. It has also become popular to "take something on" during Lent, a positive spiritual change. Above all, Lent is a practical church season, but more on that later.
A friend and mentor of mine was asked by his congregation for ideas for Lent. The following is his list of lenten ideas, lovingly stolen from him. He suggests we try to fast from:
despair
taking God or other people for granted
using biting humor
loving things more than people or God
any untruth, any lies, giving any false impressions
using God’s name in any way but loving and worshipping
insecurity, accepting honestly one’s own strengths
judging others at all, let alone unkindly
blaming others for personal failures
business on Sunday
disrespect to parents / children / police / teachers, etc.
disrespecting other peoples’ cultures
providing a bad example to family members, coworkers or neighbors
jumping to or nurturing anger
harsh words of any kind
gossip, even about small things
judging people by surface details
teasing
nagging
careless or distracted driving or bicycle riding
eating poorly
an uncontrolled temper
quarrelling
holding onto and nurturing grudges
envy
disproportionate self-indulgence
stinginess, especially with the poor
waste
laziness at work or school
thinking the worst of others
gluttony with food or drink, especially junk food
judging people for their politics
self-centeredness
movies and literature that are disrespectful of the human body
pettiness
greed
blindness to others’ needs
impatience
pomposity
rudeness
Now, remember when I said Lent was a practical season? If you’re anything like me, by the time you got to the fifth thing on the list you had already forgotten to do the first thing on the list. These are all things that we as Christians should be striving for all the time. However, human nature seems to be that when we strive for everything, we in fact do nothing. Lent tells us to look at specifics. Consider one thing, just one you can work on to better live out your faith. Work on that one thing.
Striving for one thing concrete you can actually act on and measure is more meaningful than all the vague clouds of disconnected good intentions in the world. This Lent, pick an area of spiritual focus, and really work on it. Pick one thing, and give it over to God. That is practical Christianity. Let us begin the work of Lent.
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