Smudged

[Note: Sigh. Another communication fail. I wrote this yesterday, perhaps obviously, but forgot to post until now.]

I posted this to the CMC Facebook page the other day: House for All Sinners and Saints’ 40 Ideas for Keeping a Holy Lent.

If you are someone who observes Lent, it is well worth a read, because it contains some neat ideas. If you are someone who does not and is inclined to think of Christians as kind of a bunch of hypocrites, I hope you'll take a look so you can see that some people are trying to walk the talk. If you are in any category of observance and find yourself getting vaguely and inexplicably annoyed when you hear people talking about giving up chocolate or red meat*, it's sort of an antidote to that, too. (My friend the Rev. Emily C. Heath wrote another great antidote, too.)

I liked the House for All Sinners and Saints idea enough that I'm going to do it, modifying as necessary, and I'll write about how it's going on Sundays. So that's coming up.

Communication's been hard for me lately, I think, which is to say, my computer at work is broken and also I keep having these complicated conversations. I owe several people very important notes or conversations. I also have four half-written blog posts in the drafts folder. I'm also not attempting to explain Lent or Ash Wednesday for those who might like or need explanations, because I feel confident you can find something on the internet that'll do better than I would.

But for a sec, let's talk. Whether you do Lent or not, when do you feel alone in the wilderness, and what are the connotations of that for you? When you need to refocus on what's important, how do you do that?



* I am in this category for no good reason whatever. If giving up chocolate works for you, you should do it. My reaction is as irrelevant as it is nonsensical.