Today is Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras, the day before the beginning of Lent. Can’t say I will be doing any wild celebrations. I will be rehearsing Beethoven’s Ode to Joy  and Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms with Capriccio Columbus and then meeting up with my son for our weekly habit of getting a beverage together and solving the problems of the world (or at least comparing notes on blogging and computers).

I’ve never been part of a church tradition that practices Lent or Advent. What I’m struck with more and more is that without a season of preparation, Easter and Christmas are just these isolated days where we talk about the birth or resurrection of Jesus, and then on we go. A few years ago, I read Bobby Gross’s Living the Christian Year. This book gave me a vision for how the seasons of the year and the traditional church celebrations of the Christian year can remind me of the bigger story in which I live.

The term Lent as best as I can tell comes from the German for long or length and is associated with the coming of spring when the days grow longer. Traditionally it is this 40 day period beginning with Ash Wednesday and ending with Easter. The imposition of ashes is to remind us of our own mortality (“ashes to ashes, dust to dust”), the consequence of human rebellion against God.  It is a season of repentance, of turning back to God expressed in practices of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. It culminates in Holy Week with Good Friday, when Christ died and Easter Sunday when fasting turns to feasting as we celebrate the victory of Jesus.

This year I want to make modest beginnings in this practice. Since my own community doesn’t impose ashes I probably won’t do this. I’ve decided on a few practices during this season which seem appropriate in my own life:

• I’ve decided to fast from looking at blogging stats. I think I’ve become a bit too obsessed with this and spend more time than I ought in this practice. Maybe faith, when it comes to blogging is to just write and trust God for views and following.
• I often spend time looking at stats at the end of the workday. One of the ideas of fasting is to free up time for prayer. So I will take the time I would have spent on stats and pray–perhaps especially for those I’ve interacted with that day.
• The other is almsgiving. Scripture talks about giving in secret. One of the things I want to do this year is find one way to give or serve in secret each day. It will be interesting to see if I can come up with different ways to do this. At any rate, to keep this practice, I can’t tell you any more about it–at least what I’ve done.

The other practice many observe is some form of Lenten readings. A couple colleagues told me about God for Us, edited by Greg Pennoyer. It includes beautiful artwork and readings by people like Lauren Winner, Scott Cairns, Kathleen Norris, and Richard Rohr. We’ve picked up a copy and will use this for Lenten readings.

I really don’t know what to expect. Mostly, I long to live more deeply into the story I believe–to see it move from head to heart and into life–even as I anticipate the celebration of resurrection life on Easter.

I would love to learn from some of you who have gone far deeper in this practice. What are the practices that have meant the most to you in this season? And if you are not a Christian, are there seasons like this in your own faith or worldview and what are the practices that turn that into lived experience?