An Inkling
We’re still a week out from the season of Lent. So you have several more days for your Mardi Gras revelry. But I’d like to prompt you this week to think ahead about how you might be engaged with a Lenten discipline this year.
You know the routine: people typically give up something for Lent – sweets, red meat, chocolate, or some such. Why? For some it’s just a ritual. But there are good reasons for Lent being associated with some form of fasting.
Lent is the season when we give special attention to the gospel’s claims upon us. The gospel promises are still in effect; the gospel’s grace is still to be celebrated. But during Lent we focus on the gospel’s total claim upon us. And that means that we give special scrutiny to anything that distracts our attention and divides our loyalty. To act on our readiness to be focused on our highest calling, we then set aside something that we really like, or even crave. In that discipline of fasting we then find our focus on what’s most important revived – and just in time for the highpoint of our gospel celebrations: Easter.
So how do you decide what you’ll set aside? The traditional cravings are good ones: sweets, chocolate, etc. But think more broadly about what you crave. Because we usually have ready access to all that we crave, we don’t even recognize our cravings. So think about what agitates you most when it’s removed. When the electricity is out, or when you’re on a trip that disrupts your ordinary patterns, what most puts you in a grump? That which you most miss is a good candidate for your Lenten fast.
Here are some possibilities – the sorts of things that many of us are really attached to: Facebook, high falutin’ coffee, Fox News (or MSNBC, depending on your politics), a talk show, web surfing, ESPN Sports Center, fine wine, a soap opera, a sit-com, NCIS or Bones or Glee (the top three shows these days), Twitter, Diet Coke, or… you fill in the blank. What agitates you most when it’s missing?
As they say, “Preacher, now you quit preachin’ and gone to meddlin’!” Yep. Sort out one or more of those meddlesome possibilities as the right one for you this Lent. I’ll be doing the same.
And next week I’ll have another suggestion for us to take up together for Lent.
Blessings,
Keith
