Lenten Thoughts

All right ya'll, brace yourselves, I'm going to break one of the cardinal rules of society and talk about a taboo topic in public... religion. Now, I'll preface this by saying, I don't plan on evangelizing, or trying to tell you that I'm right and you're wrong. Who knows if I'm right at all, and honestly, as long as you're not being a jerk, I generally don't care what you believe. But, I thought I would give you all fair warning. If you don't want to read a religious post, run now. I'll see you tomorrow when I show you the awesome cow lamp I bought at Goodwill. ;)

Okay... the rest of you, still with me? Excellent. So, I just wanted to write a post about my favorite season of the church calendar, Lent. For those of you who may be unfamiliar, Lent is the 40 days before Easter. Here's the Wikipedia definition, which, I think, sums it up nicely. :)

The traditional purpose of Lent is the penitential preparation of the believer—through prayer, penance, repentance, almsgiving, and self-denial. Its institutional purpose is heightened in the annual commemoration of Holy Week, marking the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, which recalls the events of the Passion of Christ on Good Friday, which then culminates in the celebration on Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Anywho... one of the bigger things about Lent, especially in "high" church denominations like Catholicism and Episcopalian is giving up something, a sacrifice during this time. Now, most people I know give up something like chocolate, or caffeine. No offense to those people. I hope that giving up a material good or action is beneficial to them, but to me, it feels superficial. So, for the last few years (I've only been churched for a few years anyway), I've given up a habit that isn't productive for me. Three years ago it was worrying, then judgement, then worrying again :). This year, I'm giving up negativity.

Now, this may sound ridiculous, especially since it probably doesn't seem like a sacrifice, but to me, Lent is a time of transformation. I feel like I should come out the other end truly different and 'reborn'. I get bogged down in negative thoughts, mostly about myself (I have a huge tendency to berate myself about not being good enough, whatever that usually means), but also about my job, other people and all kinds of things. So, for the next 40 days, I'm going to work on being positive, constructive and kind. We'll see how it goes. Just last night I caught myself starting to get really negative about my novel, and I had to just let it go. I thought about how much I had accomplished, and how far I had come.

So, we shall see. If you know me in real life, or see me being negative on the blog, feel free to call me out on it. I'm going to try my best to make a positive space for myself in the world. I'd love to hear what your thoughts on Lent are, if you've given anything up, or just what you think about my own crazy experiment here. So, leave a note in the comments! I promise I'll give you a positive reply. ;)