Lent

                                                       Everyday is a brand new day,
                                                       everyday is a journey.


He leads me where the waters glide,
The waters soft and still,
 And homeward He will gently guide 
My wandering heart and will. 
J. KEBLE.

As a child, I have spent every Lent Season, giving up something in remembrance of Our Christ dying on the Cross.
Ashes on Ash Wednesday, followed by The Stations of the Cross at Church. No meat on Friday. On Palm Sunday, we shaped our Palms into a Cross to hang in our cars and homes. We would get a mason jar full of Holy Water from the Church and sprinkle that around our home/vehicles, The following Saturday, we decorated our Easter Baskets with specific goods: Butter shaped into a lamb, Easter eggs, sausage, salt, grated beets with horseradish, small round loaves of bread and a pound cake shaped into a lamb. This was our Easter breakfast. 

This was my Lent as a Catholic. For the last six years, Emily and I have been fasting every January for the entire month. That was how we welcomed the New Year, fresh and clean, free of any baggage from the previous year. Since our move back in December, we basically skipped that fast this year. I have no particular reason. We just felt a need to do something different this time around. 

As Lent is here, I've been thinking what others  are doing this time or what it means to them personally. When I was a Catholic, it was traditional and ritualistic like Thanksgiving Dinner. The problem with tradition and ritualism is that it can become the norm. I think in a way, our fasting every January has become the norm. 

I'm not here to rain on any given religion and their traditions, but I do sometimes wonder if people come out and visit their Churches during these traditional events or do they every Sunday. I've always held this belief that if I claim to be someone or something, well then, do it all the way. Not just sometimes or on Holidays. Be that every single day.

Every Ash Wednesday, Christians come out and get their ashes, making one believe the world loves Jesus. Only that isn't really true. People love Jesus when it suits them. Sadly, on Thursday, the world will go back living the way they have been. They will, of course, come out every Friday proclaiming no meat.

I'm sorry if I sound condescending. I really don't mean to, but we need to wake up. We cannot just claim to love Jesus and  only obey His Ways when we feel like it.  This is why we Christians are viewed as fake by nonbelievers. We don't live what we preach. Just like the movie War Room claims, no one likes a lukewarm anything. 

Have a blessed day everyone.