{This is the time of tension between dying and birth/ The place of solitude where three dreams cross
-T.S.Eliot, Ash Wednesday }
Being a lapsed (recovering?) Anglican in a baptist church I find Lent a strange time. It isn't really corporately marked in the baptist church, and I find I miss the definite change of season, and the ritual and liturgy. I think I miss the stillness and the focus of a High Anglican Lent. It's a little like homesickness at times. Part of me (probably the gothic part) yearns for the poetry of the liturgy and the sombre atmosphere of Anglican church services at Lent. I have realised I also feel displaced, having left the anglican church abruptly, in grief and with bitterness. The sense of displacement hasn't been helped by physically moving several times either. Whilst I have been in my current church a little over two years, I have come to realise that often I still feel anglican in a denomination that is not my own. I guess traditions really do die hard.
Personally Lent has usually been a time I give something up (normally alcohol) and make sure that I fast once a week to realign my life and focus on God and to grow on a spiritual journey of 40 days towards Easter.
This Lent it isn't wise for me to fast/give up food groups as I am underweight, struggling to get to a healthy weight and eat sensibly. Giving myself an excuse not to eat and skip meals would be foolish. I hardly drink alcohol so it would be no sacrifice to give that up, it wouldn't signify anything. There's no point giving something up just for the sake of tradition, that would be to completely negate the purpose of Lent. However, it feels strange to me not being able to continue my own personal rituals of Lent, and I have to keep reminding myself they are only outward tools and symbols of an inner journey.
Lately my life has been so full and busy I have hardly had time to rest enough and to just be.
I certainly have not given God enough time. Prayer is still hard for me, I have been struggling for years.
I feel often that God is distant from me, and as if there is a wall around my heart. This has become easier over the last few months, but I still find prayer an effort, and I don't have the routines and discipline in place any more to make it a habit. Sometimes I feel as if I'm just going through the motions, saying words but they go nowhere, and don't really mean anything. Other times lines of communication are open.. It is hard to try to pray for any length of time when all I feel is distant and a litle lost. I have been better with daily bible study, but sometimes it is simply study/word reading, not really getting to grips with God/truth in a way I need to.
This Lent I need to create daily routines and balance to make time to spend with God.
I need to learn to pray again even when it feels hard, and as if my prayers bounce off the ceiling. I also need to make time to journal and write, as this is the main way I grow and learn and process things.
Those are my aims for Lent. I don't really know what the new routine will look like completely yet, I need to make decisions about what I can realistically keep doing, how much sleep I need and rest. At the moment I am recovering from glandular fever, and probably have post-viral fatigue syndrome am struggling to work/keep my job in the day. I have had almost no energy to even cook when I return home, let alone manage my postgraduate study. It probably isn't realistic at the moment for me to try getting up earlier to pray and write (as I usually used to throughout university/when I worked with a church) Ideally I will eventually re-establish space in the morning before work, as I thrived on the stillness and the focus of starting my day with quiet and with God.
To recap Lent aims - establish daily/weekly routines so I can
-spend at least half an hour in prayer a day
-daily bible reading
- get plenty of rest - bed by 9pm
-at least an hour before bed (hopefully *in* bed)of totally free time to write/knit/be.