Several years ago, some friends and I wrote about Lent. When I started that blog, I said

What I’m seeing is posts from you which would wrestle with what we learn when we give up that which we enjoy for the sake of better understanding that in which we delight. Not all of us are from a liturgical background. That’s the point. I want to have some wrestling with lent, with fasting, with self-denial as self-discovery, with the relationships between forms and faith and relationship.

For 2012, I decided to gather some of the posts I’ve written about Lent and fasting. I also decided to post it 10 days before Ash Wednesday in case you want to plan ahead.

And so you know, in 2012 Ash Wednesday is February 22 and Easter is April 8.

Some comments on fasting from Matthew 6

• When you fast
• Fasting looks like fun
• Maybe it’s not about me

Some comments about silence

• Deliberate silence - Excerpt: “I am involved regularly in deliberate unsilence. Every day I am generating words and thought images and stories and photos with the intention of disrupting silence. And so are you.”
• habits of sight. - Excerpt: “Some habits are desirable. We call those “disciplines.” Some habits are not. We call those “addictions.” Some are neutral. We call those “drinking coffee.” For the last six weeks I gave up a way of seeing called twitter. When Lent started, I hadn’t exactly intended to give it up. However, I was beginning to wonder whether Twitter was a discipline (staying in touch with a group of people that I was beginning to care about and for) or an addiction (staring at the flow of comments in every spare moment) or neutral (stopping to say ‘hi’ while walking to the office coffee pot).”
• listen – Excerpt: “I discovered that I use noise. I discovered that when I drive and start talking with God, I finish a couple sentences and reach for the radio. I didn’t realize how often I do that until I watched my hand reach for the radio that no longer was there.”
• 8 ways to get better at following, part 2 - Excerpt: “Most of us have heard about sabbaticals. A sabbatical is a break from something. It could be taking a day each week with electronic devices turned off or six months away from work. The idea of sabbatical is rooted in the idea of sabbath.”

Some comments about Sabbath

I know that Sabbath seems like the opposite of Lent. It’s time to eat and rest, where Lent seems to be about suffering. But for many of us, truly taking time off, giving up the franticness for family and feasting and frivolity and fellowship, would be its own kind of fast.

• Our sabbath group - Excerpt:  We started a couple years ago. Just for six weeks. Now we can’t stop. It’s not complicated, by the way. It starts with “you hungry? For supper and God?” And goes from there.
• Burdens and breakfast - Excerpt: “These were people who weren’t just tired. They were tired from living up to expectations. They were tired from having to look over their shoulder, expecting pastors to pester them, expecting Pharisees to flog them. Every step was a burden. And Jesus says, “try my yoke”.
• A question of stopping - Excerpt: “Late at night, when being driven by the list, rest seems desirable, but out of reach. In the morning, when being driven by the list, rest seems long gone. In the middle of the day, between the calls and the visits and the ambiguity and the precisely-phrased demands, rest seems impossible.”
• On rests - Excerpt: “I used to play tuba. As such, there were often long stretches of music pieces we played during which I didn’t play. We would spend these times counting very carefully (1-2-3-4, 2-2-3-4, 3-2-3-4 and so on). It was stressful at times because you had to make sure you entered at the right place.”
• Time is hard to take - Excerpt: “Ironically, it is easier to confess to you my inability to stop than it is to just stop. Is it possible that there is in the confession a desire to receive compassion, empathy, understanding…from you? I mean, you know exactly what I’m talking about. You are, as I am, a part of a culture which, whether inside or outside church, finds stopping difficult. We feel as though we must be productive in our work, in our rest, in our play, in our wasting of time. If we can’t do something, we must at least create the facade of busyness.”

For the next few days, I’m going to describe some of these projects. I’m doing so to offer them to you. Maybe you want to help. Maybe you want to take the idea yourself. Maybe you’ll help me see that the project doesn’t matter.

Whatever.

Here’s the first one: Lent.

March 9 is Ash Wednesday. It’s the first day of the season of Lent.

Three years ago, a group of friends wrote a Lenten blog with me. It was a wonderful project. I have thought about writing for Lent again this year, but I don’t have the freedom to do it.

If I did, I would not talk about giving up food.

• I would instead talk about giving up worry. For 40 days, intentionally surrendering the illusion of control which is reflected in worry.
• I would talk about giving up self-aggrandizement.
• I would talk about giving up the illusion of martyrdom which so often accompanies our service.
• I would talk about giving up resignation, at least the kind that we do to make ourselves feel better, more in control, more humble than others.
• I would talk about giving up self-righteousness, which is not a kind of righteousness that Jesus ever had any time for anyway.
• I would ask you what you would be willing to give up for 40 days as an exercise in self-discipline.

But I’m not going to do any of those. I’m not sure why. I would be interested in reading about them if someone else wants to write them.

However, I ask you to proceed with caution. It’s easy to give yourself goals that may be unrealistic or unobtainable. If you’re like me, your to-do list is massively long. I keep starting new lists of stuff I need to do. Then I tend to start newer lists that are more current or more urgent.

In First Corinthians 12, Paul reminds us that every person has their strengths and weaknesses. It’s all too easy to look at the person who gets more glory and say, “I need to be more like them.” Maybe you don’t! Maybe it’s better to look at the way God created you and figure out how to be better within the gifts that God has given you.

I played violin in middle school and a bit in high school and college. Twenty years later, I was given the opportunity to play again through the graces of a low-risk orchestra. I spent an hour with the violin and realized the amount of time and emotional energy it would have taken me to reach a level of satisfaction were more than I had to give. So I quit before I began again. Was I wrong? Maybe.

It’s definitely good to push ourselves beyond our limits, sometimes. We all know that if we stay too close to our comfort zones, we will never grow. But staying in that place of discomfort can cause burnout or even worse. Remember, “God has put each part just where he wants it.” If you don’t know, figure out where that place is. Live there. And grow there.

(Paul Merrill writes here every First Friday.)

There are times that we need to stop talking and listen. There are times, when asked a question, we must learn to say, “God, what do you think?”

Tuesday -The absolute best

To be a child would be to give up everything you worked for, all the status and perks and sophistication and responsibility and pretense.

A challenge, but worth everything.

Wednesday – Grinding them down

Jesus looks at the result of faith corrupted or abandoned and says, “you wore them out by being a millstone, grinding away. Now wear the millstone.”

But it doesn’t have to be that way. That’s why Jesus makes the point.

Start with the faith they have. Help it grow. Answer their questions.

Thursday - More than this

If your body was being killed by multiple myeloma and the only treatment were a stem cell transplant by which your body was essentially killed so that it could be brought back to life, as horrible as that is, you would do that to enter (the rest of) life.

Jesus looks at our lives with us and says, “That lust, that attitude, that activity, that pride is killing you, or it will. We’ll have to take out the surrounding tissue, but it will preserve your life. May I?”

Friday - about sheep. again.

The shepherd has a number of possible responses.

He can call them idiots. He can be relieved that he doesn’t have to take care of that one that obviously was “extra care required.” He can decide spend time explaining or declaiming or condemning. He can even make big speeches to the other sheep about the irresponsibility of the one that wondered off.

Or the shepherd can go find the lost sheep and bring it back and be thrilled about the lost sheep.