Lenten Friday 5

RevGalBlogPals Friday Five: What are you doing for Lent?

1. Did you celebrate Mardi Gras and/or Ash Wednesday this week? How?
I led the all-parish Ash Wednesday service at the largest church in my parish for the first time. It was the same yet different from how I celebrated it for the last seven years in my previous church - fewer people, less music, but the same ashes, the same words of confession, the same steps into Lent. It was good.

2. What was your most memorable Mardi Gras/Ash Wednesday/Lent?
The year I had a miscarriage on Ash Wednesday. Lent truly became a journey for us, stumbling through the wilderness, hoping for the day we would emerge from death into Easter.

3. Did you/your church/your family celebrate Lent as a child? If not, when and how did you discover it?
I remember going to Lenten services as a child, it was just an expected part of what we did as a family, as natural as brushing your teeth every morning. I enjoyed the soup suppers, and remember thinking there was something almost more holy and deep about being at church services in the evening, in the dark. They made an impression on me. I also liked that it meant that we got to be together as a family, and I could sit by my mom and look at her rings.

4. Are you more in the give-up camp, or the take-on camp, or somewhere in between?
When I was young, I was in the give-up camp, mostly because many of my friends were Catholic. It was really more like a game to us, something to challenge each other about, and compare notes on, and see who could hold out the longest without giving in. Now, I think I'm somewhere in between. Balance seems healthier, than going to the extreme in either.

5. How do you plan to keep Lent this year?
Daily Lenten devotions, giving up my chocolate indulgences (that one hurts!), grocery shopping and eating more mindfully overall to what is healthy and balanced and good for our bodies and the environment, getting through my reading list. Staying sane as I lead my congregations throug the season!