I’ve never been good at consistently keeping up my blog . Well, scratch that – I haven’t been good at consistently keeping up my blog since maybe 2006, and the bulk of what I wrote in that era I now cringe when I read. (Granted, in 2018 I’ll probably cringe when I read these words. Such is life.)
Today is Ash Wednesday, the kickoff for the Christian season of Lent. Growing up in a Baptist church I never really heard anybody talk about Lent, and I think the first time I practiced it I was a freshman at college. I think in my home tradition Lent was regarded as a little bit “too Catholic” to be of much, if any, value.
I currently work as the youth director at a church down in Torrance, California, and as it happens, my church’s pastor is out of the country for the end of this month and asked me to fill in for him the two Sundays he is gone. These Sundays were last week – Transfiguration Sunday, the end of Epiphany (a season of the liturgical year still so unfamiliar to me that I had to look up its name) – and this coming week – the first Sunday of Lent. In the process of composing sermons, I’ve been forced to wrestle with the notion of Lent, what it means, and how to observe it.
I’ve heard of many different modes of fasting during this time. I’ve traditionally done a normal fast from something, something many people I know do, giving up something like drinking soda or listening to the radio in the car or reading for fun or eating chocolate. I’ve heard of more esoteric fasts, trying to give up malicious thoughts or the right to hold a grudge. I even have one group of friends that gave up Christianity for forty days last year.
I’ve also heard of people who "fast" by doing something during the Lenten season. They decide to read a particular author or books on a specific theme. They volunteer with an organization. They donate intentionally to a church or a nonprofit.
It’s in this second vein that I’ve decided to fast to blogging this Lent. Somehow I hope to write a blog post a day (excluding Sundays) until Easter arrives. I will not put parameters on how long or how deep these posts need to be, nor will I structure them around a specific theme (unless one naturally emerges over the course of the next few weeks). My only rules are: A) It must be original content, i.e. no linking videos or songs or so on unless it’s for the purpose of offering some reflective commentary of my own, and B) it must be spiritually meaningful to me on some level, i.e. no fluff.
So if I’m fasting to writing blog posts, what am I fasting from? Well, I think one reason I’m not consistent about updating this online journal (aside from general laziness) is that I’m an extremely self-conscious person. When I write a post, I typically proofread it about twenty times over the course of two or three days before publishing it, and then I continue proofreading it after I’ve posted it for about a week, apprehensive about any comments people will leave or impressions they will have.
By forcing myself to write a post a day, I’m denying myself that right to withhold myself. I’m forcing myself to lay out some pieces of who I am and what I think that I’d otherwise hold close to my chest out of fear. So, there you go.
I have no idea what I’m going to write tomorrow, or the next day, or so on until April 8. Feel free to find out along with me.
Today is Ash Wednesday, the kickoff for the Christian season of Lent. Growing up in a Baptist church I never really heard anybody talk about Lent, and I think the first time I practiced it I was a freshman at college. I think in my home tradition Lent was regarded as a little bit “too Catholic” to be of much, if any, value.
I currently work as the youth director at a church down in Torrance, California, and as it happens, my church’s pastor is out of the country for the end of this month and asked me to fill in for him the two Sundays he is gone. These Sundays were last week – Transfiguration Sunday, the end of Epiphany (a season of the liturgical year still so unfamiliar to me that I had to look up its name) – and this coming week – the first Sunday of Lent. In the process of composing sermons, I’ve been forced to wrestle with the notion of Lent, what it means, and how to observe it.
I’ve heard of many different modes of fasting during this time. I’ve traditionally done a normal fast from something, something many people I know do, giving up something like drinking soda or listening to the radio in the car or reading for fun or eating chocolate. I’ve heard of more esoteric fasts, trying to give up malicious thoughts or the right to hold a grudge. I even have one group of friends that gave up Christianity for forty days last year.
I’ve also heard of people who "fast" by doing something during the Lenten season. They decide to read a particular author or books on a specific theme. They volunteer with an organization. They donate intentionally to a church or a nonprofit.
It’s in this second vein that I’ve decided to fast to blogging this Lent. Somehow I hope to write a blog post a day (excluding Sundays) until Easter arrives. I will not put parameters on how long or how deep these posts need to be, nor will I structure them around a specific theme (unless one naturally emerges over the course of the next few weeks). My only rules are: A) It must be original content, i.e. no linking videos or songs or so on unless it’s for the purpose of offering some reflective commentary of my own, and B) it must be spiritually meaningful to me on some level, i.e. no fluff.
So if I’m fasting to writing blog posts, what am I fasting from? Well, I think one reason I’m not consistent about updating this online journal (aside from general laziness) is that I’m an extremely self-conscious person. When I write a post, I typically proofread it about twenty times over the course of two or three days before publishing it, and then I continue proofreading it after I’ve posted it for about a week, apprehensive about any comments people will leave or impressions they will have.
By forcing myself to write a post a day, I’m denying myself that right to withhold myself. I’m forcing myself to lay out some pieces of who I am and what I think that I’d otherwise hold close to my chest out of fear. So, there you go.
I have no idea what I’m going to write tomorrow, or the next day, or so on until April 8. Feel free to find out along with me.
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I shall; I look forward to your entries.
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