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Lent does not have to be only about what we take away.

In a few weeks we will be nearing Lent and the beginning of our preparations for Easter. It seems as if we just finished with Christmas but we’ll all be looking forward to the warmth and life of spring. At the beginning of the year we are apt to make resolutions for the coming year. Lent can feel a little like that. We endeavor to give something up. The act of giving up something is intended to make room for God in our hearts, and perhaps to improve our lives as well.

Lent can be about letting go of things. Maybe we turn off the TV, or give up a favorite food. We might try to give up bad habits like smoking. Lent can be for us a kind of spring-cleaning of the soul. It is a little repentance in the sense that we are turning away from the things that harm us so that we can turn towards God who gives us life.

Lent is also a time of discernment and it falls at a very important time in the life of our parish. We need to rethink what we are doing and why we are doing it. We need to discover what is wrong so that we can address it. We need to discern what we are lacking so that we can find ways to fill that need.

But lent does not have to be only about what we take away. We can choose to add to our lives as well. This may seem like an extra burden. Many of us already feel to busy and stretched too thin. There is little appeal to a spiritual discipline that asks more of us. But we can add small disciplines that we have thought we had no time for. We can add prayer to our lives. We can take seriously the intercessor on Sunday and offer the concerns and thanksgivings on our hearts. We can attend the upcoming workshop in Contemplative prayer. We can add study to our lives. We can participate with the book group or the upcoming bible study as a way to fill our minds and enrich our faith. We can add service to our lives. We can help out at the soup kitchen or add some items to our grocery cart to give to the food bank.

By looking outside of our own personal concerns we learn more about ourselves. A good Lenten discipline is to let go of ourselves and the continual drone of our own needs in our heads. As we step outside ourselves we have the opportunity of seeing ourselves from a fresh perspective and perhaps even helping someone else out as well. Finally, as we all make the effort to grow in our own faith we help discern and describe the community that God is recreating around us. As we become healthy Christians, we grow a healthy church.

Greg Welin