Ash Wednesday 2009

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

Genesis 3:19

So. Usually for Lent, if one observes it, one must give up something enjoyable for the 40 days of the season. It is a time of reflection and sacrifice, and the idea is to remember what Christ did for us in sacrificing his life for our salvation. It is a recognition of blessings, and a denial of self. A mechanism in humility.

Now, Holy Mother Church doesn't run my life, but I once heard a priest say that he thought Lent was more about self improvement than it was about self-sacrifice. Rather than hurting and feeling pain, he said, a better way to celebrate Lent is to pick an area of your life to improve, and work diligently at it for those 40 straight days.

I like that idea.

Since I've neglected this blog since Elle's birth, I have decided that I will write every single day during Lent. It might be a blurb, it might be a song lyric, it might be nothing at all. But I will write. Blogging means so much to me and it really does help me stay grounded, and I've let that get away in the last few months. It also gets me going; part of my routine last semester was to try and blog or write down some thoughts before I studied. It helped me focus and clear my mind, and that's something that needs to happen more often, especially with the unpredictability of having an infant in the house.