Fat Tuesday

One of our wonderful Habitat volunteers brought in Mardi Gras beads in for everyone in the Habitat office. She gave me a set of beads with a pig on them. She said this was in honor of my preparation for walking the Flying Pig half-marathon. I was glad she clarified that. I was hoping she wasn't trying to give me some other not-so-subtle message.
The beginning of Lent has kind of snuck up on me. This continues to happen the longer than I am out of leadership in the church. I see now how my parishioners must have felt. When you work outside the church, the liturgical year is not really on your radar screen. I try to keep up but sometimes I really feel out of it. The Christian seasons that so ordered my work and ministry in the church seem more difficult to relate to in my current work. Poverty does not know any season. Whether it's Lent or Advent or Epiphany, sub-standard housing is ever present in our world. On this evening before the beginning of Lent, children all over the TriState region and around the world will go to sleep in houses that are unsafe and unsanitary.
Don't misunderstand me. The Christian year helps me to mark time in a way that the secular calendar does not. It draws my attention to God and God's timing for my life and the world. I am grateful for the discipline that the Lenten season will bring to my life. I think it will help me focus in a new way on my relationship with Christ and the state of my soul. I know God will speak and move and call me to a holy life once again. I guess it's just harder for me to find that focus outside full-time service within the church.
However, that is good for me. I have to be intentional about it. I have to as that great hymn challenges me to "take time to be holy." If I don't take the time to be holy, I may miss out on what God is doing and saying. I may miss out on new ways that God is calling me to be in ministry. I may miss out on an opportunity to serve others or speak Truth to a world filled with lies.
So, on this Fat Tuesday, I'm pausing to prepare. While I'd really like to eat a whole bunch of sweets, I'm going to refrain from that and simply take the time to prepare my heart and mind and body for the journey that is Lent. I want to commit to a Holy Lent. I hope to spend more time in prayer and to do some self-examination. It will be both a time to ask for forgiveness and a time to experience anew God's amazing grace.
Thanks for being a part of my journey!