Chicken

Chicken / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

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LENT STARTED WEDNESDAY, and for the first time in my life, I am participating. The particulars of my journey aren't important, but in general, I am giving up my obsessions for the next 40 days.

My initial idea was to give up candy. That sounded sensible and like something that I could do. Difficult but not impossible, and good for me. I have a very addictive personality, and my craving for candy was getting a little out of control. 

Then I began thinking about Lent, faith, spirituality, the sense of and opportunity for renewal, here in the depths of winter, and I began to see a different path, a more sweeping one that could have more resonance. 

This morning, as I contemplated the next 40 days, as I thought about what obsesses me, and how to leave those things behind - or at least leave them alone - for the next days and weeks, I began to see the amount of time and energy they take in my life, and I was sort of stunned. So even in contemplating all of this, even before starting, I have received a gift - of vision and understanding and, honestly, of time. 

And so the other side of this is to figure out what to do with the extra time and space in my life. During Lent, one is supposed to give more, and give more of oneself in service, and so I am thinking about that, too. 

Are you on a Lenten journey? What are you finding out about yourself, your faith, your spiritual state of being? 

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Coda

"The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too. All sorts of things occur to help that would never otherwise have occurred. A stream of events issues from the decision, raising unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, 
which no man could have dreamt would have come his way." 

-William Murray