Reverse Lent

Just this past Ash Wednesday I asked my wife what we were giving up for Lent. I’d been considering giving up alcohol again despite what I wrote about it last year. I just wasn’t’ sure what kind of sacrifice I wanted to make and I wanted help. “Oh,” she replied, “you weren’t there on Sunday.” It’s true, I wasn’t. Due to an emergency fully within my brother’s control I was forced to stay home and clean instead of going to church. But that’s not all that important. The point is I had missed the sermon that week. “We’ve been encouraged to add things to our spiritual practice rather than give anything up.” she continued. “Ah, neat.” I answered.

This really does sound like a good idea. The thing is, adding things is way way harder than giving things up. Giving things up is easy. Or at least it’s easy to remember. Every time you want the thing you remember to not have it. The question is, do you remember why you’re not having it? I can’t answer that for everyone but I get the impression that it just becomes habit for some people. Adding something is way harder.

We decided to add prayers before meals and bed. The thing about adding is you have to remember to do it. That’s really hard. Starting a new habit, especially one that’s not a vice, takes a lot of conscious effort. This was, of course, the point of the assignment. By adding to our spiritual practice we become more mindful of the Lord and His presence in our lives. In very obvious terms adding is additive. Instead of taking something away by rote adding to your spiritual practice enhances your relationship with God. This approach is another example of why I love my church.

However, there is an aspect of sacrifice in adding a practice to your life. You end up sacrificing some flexibility. You can’t eat over the sink while typing emails while your wife eats with the baby in the other room. You can’t doze off on the couch watching endless Olympic highlights. You have to give up those few moments you might otherwise try to steal towards something trivial. It’s these little trivialities that can eventually add up to leading a trivial life. It’s these wasted moments that can lead to us creating unintended distance between us and our families. By sacrificing these trivial moments we can gain closeness not only with the Lord, but with each other. On paper it looks simple. It can be harder to put into practice.

So far we have been pretty dismal at it. The good thing is we have roughly five weeks left to get it right. And I think (hope) that’s part of the point. We don’t have to be perfect all the way through. The goal is to perfect the process by the end of the season. Writing this is my first step towards adding daily prayer to my life. I’ll let you know how it goes.