{"id":7652,"date":"2021-02-08T08:20:35","date_gmt":"2021-02-08T13:20:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/notstrictlyspiritual.com\/?p=7652"},"modified":"2021-02-08T08:20:35","modified_gmt":"2021-02-08T13:20:35","slug":"you-cant-fail-lent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/notstrictlyspiritual.com\/life-lines\/you-cant-fail-lent\/","title":{"rendered":"You Can’t Fail Lent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The column originally ran on Huffington Post in 2015<\/a>, but it’s a favorite so here it is one more time, just in time: <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lent is one of those seasons that always begins with the best of intentions and rapidly goes downhill, at least that\u2019s how it usually plays out for me. I plan to pray more, eat less, and find creative ways to make my favorite time in the Church year more meaningful. Unfortunately, the ashes hardly have time to settle into the wrinkles on my forehead before I\u2019m feeling like I\u2019ve already failed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

But Lent is a journey, not a pass-fail test. Trust me, if it were at all possible to fail Lent, I would have long ago been expelled from this spiritual school. Fortunately, the goal here is not a perfect score at the end of 40 days. In fact, let\u2019s throw out the word \u201cgoal\u201d and focus instead on practice \u2014 spiritual practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are five tips for shifting your Lenten journey from total spiritual makeover to subtle interior transformation: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Don\u2019t start out with an unrealistic plan. <\/strong> Let me give you a peek into my own Lenten insanity. Last year in my spiritual journal, I wrote the following plan for Lent: \u201cPrayer at breakfast; spiritual reading at lunch; no eating between meals; no sweets; check Facebook only twice each day and not at all after dinner; write at least one personal letter to a friend each week.\u201d Let\u2019s just say that if I was having trouble finding even ten minutes a day for prayer before Lent, there was really no chance whatsoever that I was realistically going to do even half of this. And so, within about 48 hours, I had \u201cfailed,\u201d thereby giving myself permission to throw my hands up and toss out my Lenten promises. Don\u2019t set yourself up for a fall. You know your limits. Yes, try to stretch beyond what you normally do, but don\u2019t aim for something so spiritually pie-in-the-sky that you can\u2019t possibly see it through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. If you\u2019re not getting a lot out of Lent, look at what you\u2019re putting in.<\/strong> Right from the start of Lent I expect to see tangible progress\u2014and fast. But I don\u2019t always want to put in the hard work or go to the uncomfortable places that progress requires. We need to approach spiritual practice the way I used to tell my son to approach piano practice: You don\u2019t get to be an expert by simply sitting close to the lesson books. You have to work at it a little every day. We can make fabulous spiritual plans, but unless we stop all the busyness and spend at least a little quiet time with God in prayer every day, we\u2019re going to have a hard time getting out of the starting gate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. If and when you slip up, start over or shift gears.<\/strong> One Lent a few years ago all of my grand plans were waylaid by sick children and my own bout with brief illness. For weeks on end, we had one virus after another keeping us down\u2014both physically and spiritually. Rather than hang on for dear life to what I wanted, however, I began to realize that perhaps my \u201csacrifice\u201d for the season was to let go of my plans, and accept what was in front of me\u2014my children in need of a mom to comfort them and make them snacks. My Lenten plans were far more selfish than the Lenten reality I was handed. I wanted to lock myself away in silence. Instead I had to give up my quiet time and make time for someone else. So don\u2019t see backsliding as failure but as an opportunity to figure out what your practice should really be about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Don\u2019t use Lent as a way to achieve other goals.<\/strong> When our Lent goes off course it\u2019s often because we are focused on a secularized version of this spiritual season. We want transformation on our own terms. We give up sweets as a Lenten sacrifice but secretly hope we\u2019ll lose a few pounds before Easter arrives. We give up meat on Fridays, but end up paying far more for flounder than we ever would have spent on chicken, defeating the purpose of \u201csacrifice.\u201d We vow to pray more, but get annoyed when family responsibilities force us to miss daily Mass or our regular meditation time. Where is the still small voice in all of that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. When all else fails, just be kinder today than you were yesterday.<\/strong> Can we choose to love others\u2014our family, our friends, the person who just cut you off on the highway\u2014even when it would be easier, and perhaps even justified, to be angry? Can we look for our Lenten path in the worn tread of the carpet leading to the laundry room, in the concrete sidewalk leading to the bus stop, in the long line of cars at the toll plaza? Can we find transformation not on some cloud-lined spiral staircase leading to the sky but on the unswept kitchen floor surrounded by the people we love, who are often also the people who drive us crazy? If we can do that, even if we haven\u2019t managed to follow through on any of our other plans, then we\u2019ll pass Lent with flying colors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The column originally ran on Huffington Post in 2015, but it’s a favorite so here it is one more time, just in time: Lent is one of those seasons that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5387,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[121],"tags":[40,686,507],"class_list":["post-7652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-lines","tag-lent","tag-lenten-journey","tag-relevant-radio"],"yoast_head":"\nYou Can't Fail Lent – Not Strictly Spiritual<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/notstrictlyspiritual.com\/life-lines\/you-cant-fail-lent\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta 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