Lent? (Expanded reprint)

This post was borrowed from my discernment journal and has been edited and expanded here, thanks for a good friend for her wise insights.

It doesn't feel like lent. Maybe it was missing Ash Wednesday. Maybe its the hectic schedule, or the fact that the snow outside reminds me more of Christmas or Epiphany than Lent. Whatever it is I feel like Lent has wandered off into the snow and gotten lost.

My Lenten study books (too many of them) are sitting unread in the reading pile. My yoga is not getting done. About all I've managed this first week is to keep my head above water, or perhaps that should be snow.

What is it about the liturgical seasons that makes us feel as if life should alter subtly as we enter into them? We expect the bated breath of expectation in Advent, for life to slow down a bit, darken a bit, hush a bit. We expect the buoyant exultation of Christmas to carry over into our whole lives. And we expect Lent to put the brakes on our world, to give us space to breath and reflect. And of course it doesn't work that way. Lent is just the name for these forty days that to most of the world are nothing more than a slice of winter. The world around us hardly notices and if we are not careful we hardly notice as well.

It is of course my own busyness that keeps Lent off there in the shadows waiting to work on my soul. It is of course about balance, time management, setting priorities. And the irony is that much of the busyness are things I added in an attempt to keep that "holy Lent" we all strive for. Good intentions. Perhaps we give up sugar, or online shopping. Perhaps we're "adders" who instead of giving up take on a new practice. Maybe we promise to do morning prayer every morning, or (like me) to do yoga when I first rise. We pick out study books for Lent, good meaty things that will surely teach us more about God. In short we set out on the path of good intentions toward a destination of self improvement. Is it any wonder Lent doesn't resonate and we're left feeling a little cheated. God isn't cheating us, we're cheating ourselves.

God's one desire is for us to turn our lives toward God's self. To refocus ourselves over and over again on God. Instead we devise complicated "plans" that create more and more inner clutter.

That does not get us off the Lenten hook. That doesn't mean we get to wander through life doing whatever pops into our heads at the moment. But it does mean we need to let go of the guilt when the study plans don't work out, or we eat that chocolate bar, or we just can't rise early enough to do yoga. We need to release that guilt and sit quietly with God. And when we are quiet we need to ask ourselves, and that still small voice within, how we can best draw closer to the One who is waiting for us?

When our lives our overflowing with "should," what to do? What to do when it all is important? I know what the answer should be...