The hardest part about doing something, anything, worthwhile is often taking the first step. I registered the page with the intent to make it about my Lenten journey. Lent has meant more and more to me the older I get. Growing up, it was a time where you had to give up something. I distinctly remember being asked in my second grade class what I intended to give up. All I could come up with was my favorite belt. Even at an early age I was quite the spiritual overachiever!

Now that I am… older… with a full life, a complicated life, with family, commitments, hobbies, the idea of lent is more appealing. A prescribed time through the church to help provide focus and clarity through giving up that which owns you, controls you, distracts you, and taking up something to give you focus. Replacing a vice for a verse is how I looked at it. I can’t help but think the world needs more of that, more depth, more focus. Life is more chaotic than ever now. We have the collective power of the planet in our pocket… and for some on our wrist. At an instant, we can know who won the 1929 World Series, or who was that actors or actress in that thing we saw once upon a time on TV, or what any person is saying anywhere around the world. It’s overwhelming sometimes! Not only that, we can have it right away. Who needs to wait for anything?!? Finally, with all this power, often times I find myself using it to feed my sheep or build a wall or acknowledge those distracting notifications. Talk about abuse of power! We can’t escape all the noise we give ourselves. How on earth have I found time for all the “important” things?

The answer, of course, is I haven’t. We haven’t. I’ve been consumed in those distractions. I have a list of things I want to accomplish in this life, yet what am I doing to achieve those? How can I through all the chaos? It’s enough to drive a…

Hold on…

Wait…

I’m sorry, what?

You’re telling me that for 6 weeks, I can give that up? I can focus my life in something other than myself? Um… yes please. Sign me up!

That is what lent means to me, an escape from what some of my brothers and sisters might call “The World” and to focus on something foundational. How refreshing! I can’t help but smirk at that. To think that calling lent refreshing. The Saints are rolling over in their graves! While it may not be the same type of experience our ancestors imagined it should be, a time of repentance, solemn reflection, and joyless waiting, it still is no less transformational and important in my annual walk.

And yet here I am. The middle of May, a full month after Easter, and I am just now getting to publishing my first writing. Instead of letting myself be consumed with the deliberateness and the spirit of the season, I let myself get caught up in all my distractions. I failed. Once again.

So then why do it? Why go through with it? Why are am I talking about lent when He is Risen indeed? Really, to set the table, for myself and for anyone who cares to read this. I begin in failure (there’s a reason why my favorite spot along the Galilean lake is called Peter Primacy). Let’s see where this leads…