Me and Lent do not get on. It’s that simple. The practice of Lent is something that just isn’t part of my history or personal journey. It wasn’t there in childhood, neither was it there in my coming to faith. Despite nearly 18 years in various shades of Anglicanism, which holds at least in part to the Catholic tradition, Lent remains an obstacle and cause of existential guilt.
There have been Lents when I’ve tried to be disciplined and abstinent, and in one notable case it marked the start of a diet which did rather well…. while it lasted. Generally though, attempts to give up usually have fallen by the wayside long before the statutory period has elapsed.
Some years I have tried to take up things instead. Worthy reading, such as The Rule of St Benedict, for example, and with about as much success as abstinence. The most useful was following the Christian Aid Count Your Blessings programme a few years back, which proved thought-provoking and somewhat costly.
With Easter being so late this year I’d planned to have something in place, but once again Lent is bearing down up me, and once again I am ill-prepared, not to mention un-motivated. I suppose the truth is that I really can’t see the point in this human institution, even if instituted for the best of reasons.
Once again I have a few unformed ideas and vague good intentions, and I don’t know what will come of them. Whatever the case I have found over the years that journalling, and later blogging, is helpful and therapeutic. Like now. In the meantime, may God have mercy – and that mercy is far more reliable than my virtue.
Life, Faith and Role-Playing Games 