Lent

Lent starts next week.  I have some issues with the whole "giving up something" for 6-1/2 weeks.  I understand the concept.  I think it's about trying to find strength when you are doing something hard, and attempting to understand Christ's suffering on a very minute scale.  My husband thinks for him it's also about realizing the excesses that we are used to, and that we don't really need as much as we think to live a good life.  This just doesn't work for me, probably due to my "all or nothing" personality.  If you find you can live without the excess at the end of Lent, why do you go back to needing it afterwards?  If you are going to give something up, give it up all year long, not just for Lent.   

But all that withstanding, I still will give something up, and try not to complain about it the whole time, as I have been known to do. The year before last I decided to try something different for Lent.  I made a list of things I'd been wanting to do to reach out to people in my life but either hadn't the time or the nerve.  This ended up having an amazing impact on my life.

One of the best things that came out of that year was a friendship with our neighbor, Helen.  At the time she had lost her husband, Jerry, after he fell of the roof and then (tragically) sustained further spinal injuries while in the hospital.  They tried to rehabilitate him, but he finally passed away after 6 months, leaving her on her own and unable to even drive.  They had been missionaries in Asia for most of their lives, and she had never needed a car.  At the time all of this happened, we had just started saying hello to them when we'd see them outside.  I put a sympathy card in her mailbox, but really wanted to reach out to her to see if she needed me to drive her anywhere.  So I finally saw her outside and asked her one day.  She was very appreciative, and before long we were making weekly trips to the grocery store.  Gabriel loves her, (and vice versa), and we invited her to his last birthday party.  When the members of her church showed up on her doorstep to do some Christmas caroling in December, she called us so we could come outside and listen and meet everyone.  She's a lovely person, has the most fascinating stories to tell, and my life is the better for having branched out and made friends with her.  To me this is was a much more meaningful way to spend Lent than giving up sweets.  

So I need to make a list for this year.  One thing I will put on it is to start regularly visiting my aunt, who was recently put into a nursing home.  Another thing is to show up for one of our church's Altar Society breakfasts and church clean-ups.  I've been wanting to join but have never quite had the nerve to show up because I don't think I'll know anyone (even though I probably will see some faces I recognize).  That's a good start for this year.