Today marks the beginning of the season of Lent, a time of repentance and reflection leading up to the celebration of Easter. Often Christians use this time to give up something that they love, consume too much of, spend too much on, etc. and use the energy/hunger/money to fuel their spiritual growth. I have done this in the past, fasting from meat, carbonated drinks, caffeine, reading non-religious books, desserts, television, etc. and the time has been valuable.
But being clinically depressed – and now in the midst of recovering from postpartum mood disorders as well – makes me acutely aware of my own brokenness at all times. Lent, if anything, only magnifies the darkness, shame and guilt that I feel. Because of this it is not spiritually beneficial to me or to my relationship with God to spend more time thinking upon the shadows that surround me. Ash Wednesday is my favorite church holiday because it is the one day a year that I don’t have to feel bad about feeling bad. Everyone is walking around thinking about being ashes and dust: not just me.
Sometimes the most beautiful things come out of ashes, and some things cannot grow without first being burned. There are positive, lovely things that can only be revealed after a fire. So, this year I’m not giving something up. Instead I am starting something new.
I still view the days ahead as ones of penance, discipline, and confession but in a different way. I will be taking time out of each day to write on this blog. Sometimes I’ll write about spiritual things and sometimes not; some entries will be serious and others humorous; some will be lengthy and others short. But the point is for me to be disciplined to use a gift that has recently been on the back burner to everything else in life. I love writing and I am good at it. I also need to do it. But unless I force myself to close the Hulu tab, the Facebook tab, and the tab with my RSS reader in which I spend time every day reading other people’s writing and thinking to myself that I really should write more, I’m just not going to follow through. So now I am forcing myself in the hope that I will continue to be focused on writing even after Easter.
(No promises on quality, though: after all, I have a small child and often have a hard time telling the difference between the words “pipe cleaner” and “paper clip,” or “infection” and “invention.” Not that those are real-life examples or anything.)