2 posts tagged “ash wednesday”
Today I was part of a memorial service for a man I did not know well. I spoke with him on the phone once and met him in person the day he died. He was a member of my parish but not my church. Many people I know knew him and loved him well. He has 2 small children, and his wife survives him in this life. After a meaningful time of sharing stories and reflections in the sanctuary, we moved to the playground in the local park where a tree has been planted in his memory. We gathered there to close the official time of remembering and giving thanks. One of the children read something she had written about how much she loves her daddy. Another friend read Daffodils as the children took sand/beach buckets filled with what I realized was their father's ashes and spread them around the tree.
Well, not completely.
Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of a season of fasting, prayer, and self-denial in the Christian tradition. What most Christians and others who know a little about Christianity know about Lent is that people "give up" something for Lent. They go for 40 days (length of the season not counting Sundays between today and Easter) without things they really enjoy as an act of self-denial. People will usually give up something related to eating, like snacks or chocolate. Some will go deeper into personal habits like drinking coffee every day or spending money on eating out. We have friends who once gave up electric light during Lent. They used candles instead of tuning on lights. One year I gave up watching Days of Our Lives, and you know--it was only like a week later when I started watching it again!
So, that last couple of years I've forgotten to give this tradition much thought until I was already into the season, and since I'm a "rules person," I felt without right to go back and pick one up a week in. But this year, I've decided on 2 things, one of which will be something that will hopefully improve my health and the other which will help me practice self-denial. This year, I am giving up snacks and sleeping in for Lent.
Oh, now that I've said it, it's already starting to hurt a little. I'm suddenly craving a bowl full of goldfish (you know, the cute little ones with smiles on their faces that we snack on out of enormous milk cartons?) and have the urge to go back to bed. Yikes! This is going to be a long 40 days. I can't fast, thought, for medical reasons, so a fast from snacking will actually be good for me. And I hardly ever get up when the alarm goes off, but I'm setting my wake up time at no later than 7 am. (Left to my own devices, I would sleep until at least 9 am every day no matter how early I went to bed the night before.) And then there's the prayer part. I think that I'll be taking up the Psalms for these 40 days. They shape the spirit in many ways, and you get to sing these prayers if you have the Psalter in your library.
Maybe the whole world could benefit, Christian or not, from taking up a period of self-denial. What if the world, your country, your state, your community, or even just your household designated 40 days in which you would put aside your own desires in favor of what is good for others? What if you consciously made a choice in favor of what is best for the others in your household, etc., instead of what is best for you as an individual? What would that look and feel like?
Your thoughts?
