Lent--Week 1--Otherwise Known as "Yeah, I Suck"

Warm, gooey deliciousness.

Yeah.  I suck.  Which, frankly, I think is part of the point of Lent.  To point out to us how completely fallible and inadequate we mortals are.  Remember my lame Lenten penances and plans for devoting more time to specific areas of my prayer life?  Well, so far, I've stayed away from soda.  Pretty sad when you can make and eat chocolate chip cookies and not realize until the next day that you've violated your penance.  And my prayer plans?  Totally shot.  My only hope lies in the fact that there's still plenty of Lent left to get it right.  :-)

And believe me, I want to get it right.  I find myself caught in the rather contradictory position of assigning great importance to this year's Lent.  Contradictory because it's my first Lent, and as such, unlikely to be my best.  But at the end of this Lent comes my first Communion--an important event for us converts, not altogether dissimilar from your wedding day.  Which is an apt analogy, given how often marital imagery is used in describing the relationship of Christ to His Church.  And so, the season of Lent becomes akin to the time of preparation for a wedding.  At least, it does in my mind, on this particular year.

I look with a particular sense of awe on those who seem to give up practically everything for Lent. They've gone vegan for the season, given up sweets of all kinds, given up seasonings on their food, and fast on bread and water every Friday.  Maybe someday.  For now, such severe restrictions on my own diet would require preparing separate meals for myself, which seems pretty impractical, not to mention hard to stick to.  I know, I know.  Hard is part of the point.  But I have a real fear of failure.  And not just the little, "Wait, were those chocolate chip cookies I ate yesterday?  Oops." kind of failure, but the explosive crash-and-burn kind of failure.

Still, I feel like I should be stepping it up a bit.  But, as with choosing a penance in the first place, I'm not sure specifically how.  Something to think on, perhaps.  Or maybe I should leave my penance alone, and give more focus to the prayer end of things, which has already been a spectacular crash-and-burn.

But for now, I'll settle for actually remembering all day tomorrow that tomorrow is Friday, and I'm not supposed to eat meat.

Yeah.  I suck.  :)