Lent

Well, its my second year going to an Anglican church and my first year of officially observing lent. So the question is, what do I give up? In the past I’ve thought about giving up something for lent like chocolate, junk food, sugar…but to me, these all seem to be for another reason…more dietary… so what do I take away that is something that I’ll miss but that I won’t be doing for another reason. The thing about lent is that it is supposed to be a time of introspection to realize that we are all screw ups and that we need to be forgiven. We give up something as a reminder of Christ's sufferings and what our true pleasures are as followers of Christ and as an act of sorrow over our sin. I’m having serious problems coming up with something. I’ve thought of the radio…but I need that for school (radio one forever), I thought of TV, but our TV is the central feature of the house I live in and giving that up would be like giving up my friends, I could give up coffee… but lent ends RIGHT before I have four exams in four days and goodness knows that I will actually require coffee to do well on those. So I don’t think I’m going to give anything up.
The other alternative is to add something for lent. I do evening prayers from my Anglican book of common prayer every night (which I love by the way, I got it at Christmas and I’m honestly in love with it) and so I think for lent I’m going to add morning prayers. As well, I’m thinking of memorizing some scripture…not sure what yet, I’ll figure that out tomorrow.
I think that many churches have been really silly in getting rid of so much of the church calendar. A lot of churches only really celebrate Easter and Christmas. There is so much else to celebrate. I really think that observing things like lent changes your focus and allows you think more pointedly about certain aspects of self, life and faith. The church doesn’t always focus so much on how sinful we are. Its so often lovey dovey, which, has its place, but is only one aspect of a much bigger picture.