I ran across an article a couple days ago that had some good reflections on Lent. It's worth reading in its own right, but what really stuck with me were these words:
The Second Season :: Rev. Wayne Saffron
Lent is
Forty days till Easter,
Not counting Sundays.
We're often tempted to make everything about us. (Or is that just me?) There are so many times in our lives when we think things are about us, but they're really not. Maybe you had an interaction recently where someone responded in a way that you thought was odd. Chances are pretty good that they were dealing with or thinking about something in their own lives, and they reacted oddly to you, but they didn't think you were odd.
The season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. In ancient times, people would physically show their repentance by sitting in sackcloth—a rough, burlap-like fabric—and ashes. It was a way to demonstrate to others that you were really sorry for a wrongdoing of some kind.
As a "side" project, TheResonant suffers from being to the side of many other areas of life: my pastoral call, family, and other volunteer projects. When something has to give, this is one of the first things. But that's no way to build momentum and a worthwhile project. So I'm embarking on a new project for the season of Lent this year: a sort of reverse idea of "giving something up".
