Ash Wednesday and Lent

Today is the first full day of Lent - yesterday was Ash Wednesday.  At our church we had people "drive by" to receive their ashes.  I was so blessed to get to help with that.  I love putting the sign of the cross on the forehead of a person and say to them - in some form or fashion - Jesus Loves YOU. The ritual can have such a deep meaning that goes beyond the mere act - even in a car on the way to shopping.  God shows up.

So today marks the beginning of the 40 day journey to the cross and then to the celebration of Easter. As I sit here I realize that I need to have some intentional act that might anchor me during these days.  It is so easy to be distracted and "too busy" to focus on a regular basis.  My life experience tells me that spiritual disciplines - practices - really can make a difference.

My prayer practice for the last year has been to begin the day sitting with journal in hand and just writing in response to the events of my life. It is prayer with a pen as my sense is that God and I are looking together at what has been happening to me, through me, and in me.  And I write - most often prayers of gratitude and prayers for guidance.  Then I listen to the app "Pray as you Go" and continue to write and wonder and be with God.

During Lent I will add time with Joan Chittister in her little book - The Breath of the Soul: Reflections on Prayer.  I remember spending time with this book about 15 years ago and will - during this season revisit it again.  And allow it to speak to me.  There are 42 chapters in it which will surely take me through this holy season.

The first chapter is called "Self Knowledge" and she writes about how we must bring all of ourselves to God in prayer.

" the temptation with which we must grapple if we really want to learn to pray is \the temptation to pray as if we were more than we are.  More pious,. perhaps, More accepting of the will of god, maybe.  More ethereal in our concerns.  more otherworldly, more a citizen of the next world that a pilgrim in this one. 

But when all we bring to prayer is our holiness, what is the use of being there?  What am I not facing in myself that really needs my prayer..."

"To grow spiritually, I cannot hide - even from myself.  I must pray for self knowledge, the searing honesty that, with the grace of God, brings me to the heart of God.

Self knowledge saves us from ourselves."

And so I being this season praying for self knowledge and with the mantra of this day:

God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

Amen