Friday Five~~Keeping a holy Lent

1. Did you celebrate Mardi Gras and/or Ash Wednesday this week? How?

On Tuesday we celebrated Shrove Tuesday with a Mardi Gras theme. To "shrive" means to repent, and traditionally one went to confession before the beginning of Lent to prepare oneself. But today the focus is more on the "fat Tuesday" theme, and this year instead of pancakes we had "delicious potluck and decadent desserts." As I said to my congregation, if the purpose of a pancake dinner is to rid the kitchen of all the rich and fat foodstuffs we (theoretically at least) won't be eating during Lent, then this dinner serves the same purpose. (The choice was pragmatic, to be honest; no one wanted to be in charge of the pancake supper and this was easier to organize). It was great; we had lots of Mardi Gras beads and masks, the kids "put away the alleluias" until Easter, and we burned last year's palms to make ashes for the next day.

On Wednesday we observed Ash Wednesday with Holy Eucharist and the imposition of ashes, which I always find very moving. It was a long day, however, because we had four services and I preached at three of them.

2. What was your most memorable Mardi Gras/Ash Wednesday/Lent?

Observing Ash Wednesday at seminary was probably the most memorable, just because the whole community pauses. There are no classes; they have meditations in the chapel; meals are taken in silence in the refectory (the last part bugged me the first year, but I get why they do it.) At any rate, being someplace where the whole community is (mostly) taking part made it seem more serious than it had in my past. I've tried to keep that seriousness about the day with me.

3. Did you/your church/your family celebrate Lent as a child? If not, when and how did you discover it?

We did observe Lent when I was a child. We talked about giving things up, and we kids always had "mite boxes" to collectchange for "the poor" which we then took to church on Easter Sunday.

4. Are you more in the give-up camp, or the take-on camp, or somewhere in between?

I'm in the both/and camp. Giving up something just to give it up can be a bit meaningless (at least in my experience) if it's not done intentionally, and preferably accompanied by some sort of discipline or thoughtful activity--it doesn't have be something big, but it needs to be intentional.

5. How do you plan to keep Lent this year?

I'm still thinking it through--yes, I'm a bit late. Last year I gave up meat--the little meat I was still eating--because it seemed to be a good way to segue into a more complete vegetarianism, something I'd been wanting to do, and that was pretty successful. This year I am giving up Diet Coke because I drink a lot of it and it's not that good for me. I also want to eat more healthy food. I don't do badly now, but chips and cookies have crept back into my diet and they need to go.

I think that I am going to try to spend more time reading--as in reading books. I never thought that I would take that on as a discipline because I love to read, but over the last few years, it's become harder for me to sit down and read a whole book. I don't have large hunks of time, and because I'm often tired when I sit down to read, I fall asleep. And I have lots of books I want to read. What this means is that I will need to spend less time on the computer. I'm committed to blogging, but I may spend less time reading and just browsing around the web. We'll see.

I have a lot on my plate this Lent--I've taken on a lot a work. So my other goal is to keep positive and balanced about getting it all done. It's very easy to get frustrated and upset about how things go there but I just need to do my work and let some of the frustrating stuff go. Easier said than done. But yesterday was a good day in that respect.