Lenten Disciplines

This Lenten season has been a really great time of returning to old practices and turning inward. For Lent, I decided to take on daily journaling as a form of prayer and reflection. After a solid start, I am now journaling only about four times a week--not as often as I had intended, but still significant for me. As a kid, I wrote in my journal sporadically, sometimes writing daily for months, sometimes going a year between entries. In fact, I still have journals dating back to fourth grade--terrifying and hilarious to read, really. In high school and college, I discovered that focused writing was a powerful form of prayer for me, but it was often difficult to keep it up as a regular practice. It was always easier while on a special trip or during my summers with Project Transformation. At the end of my semester in Spain, during my junior year at Albion, my back-pack was stolen and, with it, my journal from those four months of travel and study. It was by far the most difficult thing to have lost and I struggled to journal for some years after that.

So now I am attempting to return to the practice of journaling. After breakfast, I take some time to read scripture and a reflection of someone else on that scripture or I begin with another reading (something I've done for a long time), and then I spend 10-20 minutes writing and sitting in silence. This time has opened up for me some significant questions about life and ministry that were floating around out there, but that I hadn't fully engaged. In response, I have taken some intentional steps forward in my work with the church.

Eric decided to give up coffee. He does not want to be addicted to anything and, he realized, coffee makes him anxious. And he stopped--cold tofurky. After a couple days of headaches, he felt fine. I had no interest in quitting coffee at first and continued to make myself a full-strength cup each morning. After a week, though, I began to cut back, just to see if I could do it. I began to substitute one scoop of regular with decaf until I was drinking only one cup of quarter-caf. This took about three weeks (I know, I'm a wimp). And then I switched to green and black tea. In the past week, I've had a tiny bit of coffee about 3 times but only tea the other days. Sometimes I'm groggy, but it's been nice to give my body what it needs when I'm tired (a nap) instead of what I want (caffeine!!).

Our disciplines are not huge life changes, but I have noticed that the intentionality is spilling over into other parts of life. I like that.