Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving: Religious thoughts from here.

It is Lent and in the Catholic tradition that means there is supposed to be a focus on prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

So far I've done an okay job of praying. I use an app called "Pray as you go" to help draw my attention and collect some thoughts.

Fasting- is not working.  The things I am trying to fast from are holding tight. 

Almsgiving- I gave a guy a dollar yesterday does that count?  Somehow it seems like it doesn't count.

I am missing my job a lot right now.  Lent was always a busy time, but also a very special time.  I was with my students who were going to be baptized at Easter Vigil and planning the details of the Vigil with my colleagues. 

If I wanted to I could just slink out of any religious practice.

It's good perspective for folks who might be vaguely religiously interested but who don't retain any real practice of it.  It's hard.  The rest of the world is not there.  Honestly, their is a lot more hype about Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's day than Lent. . .


Early spring, here in the midwest is uncomfortable with itself.
You can feel the ice breaking and can feel the winter cold trying to take control.
You can feel the warm southerly winds forcefully assert themselves.

A fight in the air and the temps of the soil.
Even the bugs, birds and amphibians have to decide weather to trust it or not.
A wrong move means frozen up in a surprise snowfall or ice storm.

Is this kind of what lent is?  Is there some kind of conversion?
My spiritual director asked me last month to work on a certain challenge in my life.
I am so so resistant to it.  Am I the winter trying desperately to hold on to the way things have been?
I am am certain that this person in my life cannot change.
I am certain they will do nothing to work on our dynamic.
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So how does one manage that?

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Last week I had a meltdown after Ash Wednesday.
I went to services and a place that did a bad bad bad job on a couple of the details.
The kind of details they messed up are the kinds of details I know how to do instinctively.
It made me angry.
And it makes me wonder what to do with all of that energy. 
What am I supposed to do?
Should I work? Where are the invitations to do the the kind of work I am good at and want to do?

But also, the danger of being a passionate person is that I can get jumpy about a LOT of things.
So how do I listen to what is deeply important to me?
How do I pay attention to the ways that being lonely are contributing to my desire to do things.
It is very very hard to feel meaningful.
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I have prayed a lot in the past 6 months.
I have been listening, paying attention
And, I don't have any idea what God is saying.
I don't even know if she is saying anything or if I am listening wrong or what.

I know that feeling like God isn't very active is a common Christian experience.
I am not distraught or having a faith crisis about it.
I am pissed.
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I am reading a book about Dorothy Day right now. It is written by her granddaughter.  I'm only a couple of chapters in, but one chapter shares about how Dorothy was baptized hastily and also without much consolation.

It has me thinking about how many of our religious and spiritual impulses are not nearly as consoling and fanciful as we like to believe.