Lenten Reflections Vol.1

Today is Ash Wednesday and all day long I've been bothered by my church's decision not to celebrate the Lenten Season. While it is certainly true that Lent is not mentioned in The Bible (or in the writings of the Apostles) the letters of St Athanasius circa 339 AD indicate that vritually all of Chrisendom was celebrating the festival by the early 4th Century AD. As John Westerhoff puts it; "Lent invites us to risk a journey through death to life, to enter a wilderness filled with danger, to enter the desert where both God and the evil one dwell. All too often the church has offered us only feasts without fasts, talk instead of silence, togetherness instead of solitude, satisfying tasks instead of suffering, a vacation trip instead of a wilderness pilgrimage. But each year at Lent we are invited to enter the desert, to embrace solitude and silence, to fast, to open ourselves to suffering, to listen for the voice of God in our restless spirits."
I wish I could say I've spent my day trying to figure how best to open myself to suffering but that would be a bold-faced lie. The only time suffering crosses my mind is when I'm trying to end it or avoid it. That all changed tonight. While hanging out at PJ's Coffee after youth group Alex asked me what I was giving up for Lent. When I didn't have an answer for him he hit me with the seven most devastating words that've probably ever come out of his mouth: "I think you should give up coffee."
Me. Without coffee. What's next? The Fonz with no leather jacket? Starsky without Hutch? Ferrante without Teicher? they know me at every Starbucks in the the tri-state area, for heaven's sake! My thoughts immeadiatly turned to the chapter in Girl Meets God (if you haven't read it RUN do not walk to your local bookstore and get it) where Lauren Winner is faced with a similar Lenten challenge (no books). She spends the next month alternatly sweating bullets and flat out breaking her vow. Honestly, if I make it a week with no coffee that'll be a miracle.I'm more ineteresting to see what God's up to through this little excersize (insomuch as He'll let me know). I had no idea this was even gonna happen so I have even less idea where it's gonna go. I do know that the whole "deny yourself" thing has its merits (much as I want to ignore them). Maybe I'll actually learn some of them this time. I doubt it.