Lent

Well the third day of lent and so far so good!  This year we have given up TV and films - well almost!  We have agreed that we will watch one hour of TV a day and the men in my life have negotiated that the 6 nations rugby is completely excluded from our TV fast (but all other sporting fixtures are included).  The hope is that this really will release us to spend more time in prayer and reflection or just enable us to be more aware of God. 

So far the the crossword and su doku puzzles in the newspaper have been done every evening and I think that we are talking and listening to one another a bit more - not sure God has featured to any greater degree yet but it is early days.

Last year we gave up sweets, cakes, crisps and alcohol, three years ago we gave up meat.  The challenge to fast from something other than food arose a couple of years ago when my husband and I were in the process of serious weight loss and so to fast from food seemed a superficial approach to lent as we had been doing that through dieting since the start of the previous autumn. 

That year I gave up praying with words (almost) and prayed by drawing, using colour and meditating on icons or religious art - it was really hard work and required a significant investment of time. I had to learn to hear God and communicate with him in a very different way.  It certainly taught me self-control and slowness in prayer and how to examine my own heart before Him.  Of necessity it took more time as each day I needed to sit with paper, pens or paints and pray. 

The decision this year not to fast from food came from my own recognition that I can be diet and weight obsessed (of which more another time) and also from reading Mark 7 v 15 "Nothing outside a man can make him unclean by going into him. Rather it is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean."  I really sensed that God was saying to me that my obsession with what I ate was not the issue but rather what I said and did.  My words have the power to have a greater impact on others for good or bad than my weight - so obvious I know but quite a revelation to me a couple of weeks ago!  So I sensed that the challenge this year was to do something which would have a greater impact on what I said or did.  Creating more opportunities to be in the presence of Jesus, finding time and space to live more thoughtfully so that others are encouraged and built up is the priority this lent.  Not spending too much time in front of the TV and having our heads filled with images and noise seemed to be a good way of creating the conditions which might help achieve this thoughtful living.

I am really interested in something which Catherine Ogle (Dean of Birmingham Cathedral) tweeted this week - she has given up meat and alcohol and put herself on a diet of poetry.  I am looking forward to hearing more about this and in particular the poems that become important during this season.  (Catherine is on Twitter @CatherineOgle should you want to follow her as she consumes poetry over the next six weeks.)  It would be great to hear from you if you have given up something that isn't food or drink and taken up something else as part of your lent discipline this year.