Wedneday, February 22 - Ash Wednesday musings

Today is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the Lenten season. I was raised Southern Baptist so the act of "giving up" something was not practiced in the Baptist Church. However, I always believed in the symbolism of Lent and self-sacrafice. Many people "give up" or do something for Lent because it is what they've always done or everyone else is doing it. There have been years that I have skipped Lent because what I decided to give up was trival or for one reason or another, I was not feeling very spiritual or faithful that year.

So as Mardi Gras came to a close, the annual question arose - what to give up? In a conversation with a student, he shared that one year his priest suggested that instead of giving up a thing, give up a few moments of time to the betterment of one's self. Give up 15 minutes to read the Bible or to pray or to journal. It was an interesting twist on "giving up." My student decided to "give up" a few moments of the medical exam to ask one non-medical question of his patients.

This got me thinking about what time I could give up. What is doable? What can I achieve? I could give up 10 minutes of sleep to do crunches and pushups or I could give up 60 minutes of work each week to have lunch with a co-worker.

I certainly need to give up sugar in some form or another but is that really self-sacrificing or is that just another way of saying I need to clean up my eating habits. And, I need to do that with or without Lent.

I still have a few more hours to decide what to "give up.