Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Ash Wednesday & Chinese New Year

What does it mean? The start of both Lent and the Year of the Chicken on the same day?

I usually give up something for Lent. In the past, it was often chocolate, or coffee. Last year, if I remember correctly, it was meat.

Besides the fact that I'm not Catholic, and in fact, I'm not even a practicing Presbyterian at the moment, I do think there's something wrong in just making the 40+ days before Easter an excuse to diet. I don't think I'm fooling God or myself there. It's a sacrifice, yes. But for the wrong reasons.

And I do think setting aside a special period of time in the year as sacred is a good thing. Maybe it's not just coincidence that the Lenten period is more than long enough to establish a habit. If I was able tp start writing daily - well, at least posting a sentence or two daily - after just 3 weeks of doing it, what else could I develop the habit to do?

Here's what I want to try, starting today:

1) 30 minutes of quiet time a day - either reading some spiritual teaching or book (Tolle, for example, or the new Charlotte Kasl that my birth father sent me) - or meditating, or a little of both. The trick here will be not falling asleep while I'm doing it.

2) Getting rid of one thing per day.

Today I got rid of my old, old, old blue sweat pants.

The quiet time starts right
about

now.

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