Lent 2012

Just about a month until Lent begins again, and I am planning.

I have kept up with my whole food vegan diet since Lent last year - I cheat a few times a month, but the spiritual and physical heath that I experienced during Lent was too good to give up last Easter.

I think I will go back to the Daniel Fast of last year.  I was worried it wouldn't be enough of a change from my normal diet since I've remained a vegan, but the total abstinence from sweeteners, any beverages except water, leavened breads and solid fats will be a pretty big change.  I also think I will do a total fast once or twice a week - maybe on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Instead of just not eating certain things to observe Lent, this year I'd like to add something that I'll do during this season.  I've thought about gathering with friends to have a Bible Study, or that I would undertake a reading assignment on my own.

It was suggested by a friend of mine that a group of us gather to say the Daily Office. It consists of Morning Prayer, Daily Mass, Evening Prayer/Vespers, and Night Prayer.  It would be challenging schedule-wise, but would certainly make for a well ordered Lent.  Something to consider.

I am beginning to pray about this now.  Life is so different this Lenten season than it was last year, and as much as I would like to repeat my 2011 experience exactly, I know there are new ways to grow that are appropriate to my new life.  One of the first lessons I learned last year was that my specific expectations are somewhat irrelevant; fasting makes us attentive to that which God wants to do in our hearts, and we needn't wait long to have these desires revealed.

New Desert

For Lent: "What is my new desert? The name of it is compassion. There is no wilderness so terrible, so beautiful, so arid and so fruitful as the wilderness of compassion. It is the only desert that shall truly flourish like the lily. It shall become a pool, it shall bud forth and blossom and rejoice with joy. It is in the desert of compassion that the thirsty land turns into springs of water, and that the poor possess all things."
-Thomas Merton