I am thinking about Lent.
I am participating in Lent. I celebrated Ash Wednesday (And Shrove Tuesday; blueberry pancakes, chicken sausage, bacon). I made Shrimp Gumbo.
But I am wondering if Lent is not so much about giving up things up but more about embracing new things–making positive changes in our behavior to become more fully what we were created to be.
In the book, Living Faith Day By Day: How the Sacred Rules of Monastic Traditions Can Help You Live Spiritually in the Modern World, by Debra K. Farrington, the author of eight books of Christian spirituality, and a popular retreat and workshop leader shows us the difference between self-help and spiritual growth on creating a “rule” to guide everyday life, based on Christian monastic rules. For example, Contrasting a rule with a New Year’s resolution, she says that the latter is based on what we think is wrong with us (too fat, too poor, too tired, etc), while a spiritual rule grows from a desire to become more fully what we were created to be.
Recently, a friend asked me, “Bruce, what are you giving up for Lent?”
I answered I am not giving up things. Rather, I am embracing new things with spiritual rules that will help me to become more fully what I am created to be.
Fasting turned upside down!
A Lenten journey of renewal, like the crocus in my garden reaching each and every Spring toward the sun, I, too, continue to blossom and grow.
Pope Francis wrote a few years at the start of Lent:
This all reminds me of the watercolor I painted last night.
A song. A song with new lyrics.
Ain’t no mountain high enough
Ain’t no valley low enough
Ain’t no river wide enough
To keep me from gettin’ to you…..The Spirit In The Sky.
Information about the song, Spirit in the Sky, here.
I am the place where God stands forth in the world as me. I love the place where I stand. I value myself and the gifts I have to give and I give them wherever I go.
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