50 Days, 315 left

This was the kind of random greeting I got from my e-mail calendar the other day - hard to believe we've already gone 50 days into the new year! Time flies when you're having fun, I guess.

Today has been a pretty good day - a fair amount of alone time and just hanging out, which has been nice. This morning I started off with reading through "Living the Christian Year" by Bobby Gross. I decided to catch back up with reading, as I had been to an Ash Wednesday service this week, which was a good chance to reflect and just be at peace and connect with God. Just by way of background, I don't come from churches with a lot of traditional elements in them, so celebrating Lent is kind of a new thing for me. In fact, I don't think I have been to an Ash Wednesday service before this.

Anyhow, the service on Wednesday was really neat, so I wanted to read Living the Christian Year, both for background and to further connect with the idea of Lent. Some things really spoke to me from the book.

In his discussion of Lent, Bobby Gross states: "Each year, the season of Lent asks us to embrace a spiritual gravity, a downward movement of soul, a turning from our self-sufficiency and sinfulness. In such a quiet turning, we are humbled and thus made ready to receive from God a fresh and joyous grace."

Later he states: "...fasting is much like sabbath-keeping: a restriction that creates space for God....Fasting then, is to deny ourselves food for a time in order to more vividly know Jesus as the source of our sustenance and being."

That just really spoke to me, particularly about the "quiet turning" and creating space for God. My life hasn't been particularly hectic these past few weeks, but I do feel like there is constantly something going on, something demanding my attention, especially if I let it do so. It's just a neat picture of slowing down and creating space for God, and that's why we fast. It's not because it is such a particularly spiritual thing, or that it will earn us brownie points with God - but rather, it is a nourishing, pure thing that allows us to more fully connect with God and receive what he has for us. What a neat thing indeed.