Lutheran Lent Part Two: BEST LENT EVER!

I’m having the best Lent EVER.

That’s a relative term, you understand.

Lent is usually fraught with all kinds of things…general busy-ness due to the sheer volume of worship services going up by 30% this year plus regular kid and family business.

And I usually tend to add on some kind of discipline that weighs on me, like a physical discipline or fasting from something or whatever it might be, so you can add in guilt to the equation. Even if I don’t “cheat” from whatever it is that I’m doing, I sure end up thinking about it a lot.

This year, in my quest to just BE, I’ve found out two things.

One, sometimes BE-ing is hard. I have indeed been tempted to turn this into a “have-to” kind of thing, like scheduling ten minutes to just BE. I’ve been hard on myself when my mind races, because I’m not just BE-ing like I said I would. Ridiculous. But true.

Two, it’s also been really awesome. By releasing myself from some weird pressure to DO something, I’ve created space for those things to actually happen. I’m enjoying sermons, both mine and not mine. I’m showing up on my yoga mat and running when it’s not crappy outside, just for fun.

I don’t know if I’ll do this every year, because I think disciplines are good…I think they help us convert and shed our skin to a NEW way of being, if that’s what needs to happen.

But this year, this is GOOD. I watched my favorite movie the other afternoon between meetings and was not at all surprised to see this wisdom at the end. I can do that too!