Ash Wednesday and Giving Up

I’ve been reading the novel, “In this House of Brede” by Rumer Godden. If you’ve never heard of it, it is about an abbey in England in the 1950s and 1960s and the group of women who have devoted their lives to God by becoming claustral nuns there.

It is sometimes hard to follow because there is so much dialogue and it’s not always clear who is talking. Plus, some of those conversations are from the past and I sometimes get lost wondering if they are talking about something that happened previously or is going on right now. I’m muddling through, though, and like the book more than I expected to.

I initially wanted to bring it up because these women, these nuns who have professed total devotion to God, are still full of sinful thoughts and actions. No one is perfect which is why we need religion, why we need God’s forgiveness, why we need to get down on our knees sometimes and just send up all the prayers we can. Not only for ourselves, but for all of our family, friends, other loved ones and liked ones, and even enemies. This is also why Jesus died for all of our sins.

Today is Ash Wednesday and I’ve been mulling over what theme I wanted to blog about for the next six weeks of Lent. When I was reading this book earlier this week, the abbey was just going into Lent for another year. One of the characters told one of the younger sisters that Lent was a time of cleansing; spring cleaning, in fact.

Many people “give up” something for Lent, but more recently I’ve heard of people doing other more creative things to remember what these six weeks are leading up to. One of those things is to each day choose an item you no longer use or need, put it in a box and then come Easter you have an entire box of items to donate to charity.

I think I could do that. I think I should do that! All the clutter in my house! But, I think, more importantly, all the clutter in my brain. I think if there were something I really needed to “give up” for Lent, if only I could, it would be to empty my mind of all the nonsense and randomness, as well as the worries and obsessions.

Instead, I think, realistically, I’ll be giving up chocolate until Easter morning.