a smear of ash, a pinch of salt, a stick of butter

"Lent is the time for trimming the soul and scrapping the sludge off a life turned slipshod. Lent is about taking stock of time, even religious time. Lent is about exercising the control that enables us to say no to ourselves... Lent is the time to make new efforts to be what we say we want to be." - sister Joan Chittister

lent has always facinated me. at my non-denominational mega-church we never broached the idea of mystical spirituality; icons, liturgies, and rituals were eschewed for stage lights, a chorus of guitars and didactic sermons. when i attended the catholic wedding ceremony of one of my distant cousins or tagged along for a friend's first communion i was awed by the heavy symbolism and tradition that pervaded everything. sitting down, standing up, keeling. chanting, praying, hearing. drinking and eating. my observations mingled equal parts awe and terror; i marveled that spiritual practices could be so markedly complex yet horrified they were missing the point.

for a dramatic 10-year old, lent was a perfect mix of spiritual symbols that ended with a clincher: kneeling penitently before a priest has he smears ash on my forehead, a display of complete personal culpability. i relished the mysterious and shadowy environment even if i didn't fully understand the meaning.

now i'm part of a community that observes a traditional church calendar and we've finally arrived at lent. in the decade since my first lent experience, i've had more enlightenment about my lenten practice. i give things up, but the meaning isn't really in the sacrifice. instead, it's in the willingness to search for habits, people or actions that we've become addicted to, and allow those things to fall away in favor of Christ's grace and His ability to fill us. we're weeding out the irrelevant, creating space for Him to fill us with more love. it never works to simply give something up; in the giving we must choose to be filled with something else.

this year, i've decided to give up eating out. it was initially a knee-jerk decision. i thought, "lent is coming. i go out too much, so i'll give that up," but the more thought i gave it, i felt it was increasingly important. i eat out when i'm hurried and haven't given enough thought to the shape of my day. i grab a burrito or slice of pizza, or heaven forbid, a quick-trip hot dog, because it's a last-ditch option on my way to my next activity. often i'm simply too lazy to prepare something at home. when i eliminate the option of eating at a restaurant, i create an opportunity to consider nourishment, hospitality, frugality and discipline; i begin to cultivate a home life, one that carefully considers the natural rhythm of my day and includes a community of friends.

so i've decided to give up one thing, eating out, and have replaced it with a series of spiritual disciplines that prepare me for Christ's direction, what He would have me do with my extra time, space and money. i'm anticipating recording the things that i learn from this experiment--insights i have into the season, recipies i try, conversations i have over the dinner table. i wonder what 10-year-old shanna would have thought (she gave up her blankie).