Lent

Lent

Sacrifice

What to give up?

Take on?

In the season of fasting

what is my fast?

what is my gift?

Am I willing to risk

what comes first to mind?

The things that take up too much time

too many hours

stretching into days

patterns and behaviors

departures from sacred ways

40 days of discipline

am I up to the task?

I've never tried before

Never had this cross on my forehead before

but I feel called

I may not succeed

but I will try.

Today begins Lent, and as I sat in church today at the noontime service, for the first time I felt led to think about what I would do differently in Lent this year. Past years, I haven't done anything...it was never a tradition for me growing up, and I just never really got on board. But today, I sat there, thinking through things I could do differently...and while lots of people give things up for Lent, the idea of sacrifice, I like more the idea of adopting a new discipline or practice. I waste many of my mornings, and I've written on this blog just twice since my YAV year ended. I've written very little in terms of poetry that I haven't written on the blog, and I said to myself, "You need to write more. It was important to you."

So I'm going to write each of the next 40 days. Good, bad, ugly, I want to turn my writing into a discipline of sorts...expressing myself as I can. Some days I may read lenten texts or devotionals to reflect on, others I may just write what is on my mind. But for 40 days, I am going to write.