I have been having an internal debate on and off for the past couple of weeks. I knew Lent was approaching because I was helping to get things together for the Pancake Supper. Also as in most clergy family houses the ebb and flow of the church year is very well known in our house. I measure the year by church seasons - Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter and ordinary time. The debate has been what to do for Lent. Should I give something up? Should I take something on? At the moment I am feeling my regular late winter blahs and also like I am already on overload.
Since I became a mother, Lent has not been the same. I don't quite have the time that I used to have to devote to my own edification and spiritual growth. Yet at the same time I do feel like I have grown a great deal in my spiritual life - there have been strange bumps along the road and unexpected curves and outcroppings as we have gone along.
Even in writing this I have been interrupted two or three times to tend children and chores that need to be done. Many days I think of myself as scattered, but somehow I do manage to pull together the things that need doing even if it means doing it in steps rather than all at once. So I ponder how to spend a holy Lent. I could probably give something up, but I wonder if that would be a true spiritual exercise or a way to somehow punish myself for the many ways in which I fail to be the best person I could be. I think that is not meeting the sacrifice properly, I don't believe that is what God wishes fasting to be for us. Or is that just an excuse that I make because I don't really want to give up the few little pleasures that I allow myself occasionally (a piece of chocolate or a glass of wine).
As I sat to write this, I thought I would like to add a picture. I found this picture above of the rocks on the beach and in the middle a piece of sea glass and a pretty little shell. I think perhaps a good exercise for me would be to seek out the hidden treasures of my life and to document them for myself. In the past few years I have stopped watching the news and read less and less of what is going on in the world, not because I don't want to know, but because I have noticed how negatively most news sources view the world. They seem to look for the worst possible picture of humankind. I think perhaps part of my Lenten discipline will be to look at those hidden treasures of life, those special times when a ray of sunshine illuminates a beautiful person, place or thing in life. Those moments of illumination that make me realize that people and creation is essentially good and God is here with us, pushing and prodding us to be and become the best people we can be.
