sacrificing for Lent

[I don't think that anyone reads my blog, so then I don't post. But obviously if I don't post, no one will ever start reading it. I understand the terrible cyclical nature of the problem...I just feel silly writing to no one sometimes...]

I am giving up sweets for Lent. I have never done any such thing before. I think the more accurate term is something like Lenten sacrifice but I 'm not sure. The idea is to make a change that focuses part of your day and/or mind on God when it normally wouldn't be. For example, whenever you would normally do whatever you are giving up you focus on God instead.

Or when someone asks you "You want a girl scout cookie?" and you are questioning the wisdom of giving up sweets at the beginning of girl scout cookie season, you think about God and why you are making that decision. That no matter how much I want that cookie, I want God more and that makes the sacrifice worthwhile. I am still kind of experimenting with this fasting/sacrificing concept, rolling it around in my mind. I decided I was going to do it before I had a really solid idea of why. It feels kind of like I am at the very edge of a very deep lake, so deep you can never really find the bottom of it. And I am just kind of splashing my toes in the edges of it.

If I think too much about the deep parts it makes me want to get out entirely. I mean, there is nothing inherently wring or ungodly about a girl scout cookie, why shouldn't I have one if I want? So far I haven't "cheated" (I don't really know what to call it even). A friend made fudge at our house last weekend and left it here. It has been sitting in the fridge all week. This morning I took it to work and left it in the office and told them I would take my tupperware back unless it was empty.

There is something about sacrifice that brings up a lot of emotions for me. Feelinsg like I should have to go without something I want. Feelings of guilt for even having so much in the first place when so many people have so little. It is very confusing and I have to sort through it just a little bit at a time or I get overwhelmed.

Lent...

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of lent. To some people that statement could not be any more obvious (as in, "well duh, of course it is"), however to many people including Christians that is something they don't know. Or maybe they heard it once but never really though about it. In any, case it is not an important part of their lives. And it has never been for me either. But I want it to be.

As Evangelicals (which I claim to be only because it sums up my understanding of God better than any other one-word term) we seem to avoid and even disdain anything that smacks of ritualism. Anything that involves fasting and observing certain days and what is that on your forehead? There is no place for anything but grace and the way the spirit is moving right now at this moment. And if the spirit says you want a cheeseburger, then I guess you better have a cheeseburger. And whatever else the spirit says at any given moment. There seems to be no place for spiritual discipline of type implied by Lent. We are also taught (usually not blatantly but through subtext) that "those people" aren't really spiritual they are just doing what someone told them to do, stand up, recite this, sit down, no meat on Fridays, whatever.

I have wrestled for a long time with the difference and the balance between ritual/liturgical practices and whatever you would call the more Evangelical approach*. I still haven't quite figured it out but I am looking at it more directly than I have in awhile. And because of that I am observing Lent for the first time. We'll see how that goes...


*which is as far as I can tell
1. Introductory worship song (optional)
2. Welcome to new people, where is the nursery, etc.
3. 30-40 minutes of singing
4. Announcements
5. 30-50 minutes sermon on whatever the pastor wants to talk about, rarely related to the season or time of year
6. prayer and blessing of some sort
7. coffee