40 Days and 40 Gifts - lent begins

Today is Ash Wednesday – the beginning of the lentern and passion season in the Christian calendar. Most of us associate lent with giving up something we enjoy – usually chocolate. But few of us delve deeper into what lent is and why we participate in it.

Lent is a gift – an opportunity to prepare ourselves inwardly for receiving and reflecting on the gift of God’s grace over the Easter weekend. We prepare ourselves by doing as Jesus did in his 40 days of temptation in the desert before his ministry began. Whilst Jesus was being tempted he relied on God. We are asked to do the same. But lent is so much more than asking for God to help us not eat chocolate for 40 days – it is a real opportunity to commit ourselves to 40 days of spiritual growth.

So as we decide what we need to “give up” in the lentern season we need to ask ourselves why we are doing it – are we doing it to show to others that we can, to demonstrate our own will power? Or are we doing it to seek God daily?

Last year I gave up eating meat over lent. Initially I did to prove to myself that I could do it. But then God started throwing reading material at me. A vegetarian colleague gave me a book about being vegetarian to read. The lady I buy my organic produce from sent articles about how animals are treated for commercial purposes. I found myself coming across article after article about the benefits – physically, environmentally and socially – of being vegetarian. Ultimately the discipline of not eating meat helped me to reflect on God’s kingdom and on how we treat it. My experience led me to commit to leaving a smaller footprint on God’s earth and to treat his creation with greater respect.

This year, I have decided to explore my ties to things material. The journey to this decision has most certainly been God inspired. It started with me questioning my own values earlier in the year. I have always thought of myself as being someone who is not particularly materialistic – I don’t lust after the latest gadget or desire to drive the fanciest car. But God pointed out to me that I am tied to things. I opened up my clothes cupboard after my domestic worker had been in my house and found that she had packed away all of my ironed clothes. The only trouble was that there was hardly enough shelf space for her to pack everything away. I found myself looking at my closet through her eyes and wondering why I needed so many clothes. I felt guilty. For the few weeks after that I felt more upset than usual by the poverty that surrounds us daily. I had to keep asking, why do I have so much and why do they have so little?

I was then given the latest Kingsley Holgate book – dispatches from Africa’s outside edge – as a gift. Reading it I realised how little him and his family lived on for over a year as they sought to save people’s lives by handing out malaria nets to mothers in every outside edge town along the coast of Africa.

At this point I still hadn’t decided what to do for lent but I did know that had to do with my things. Last night (I was supposed to decide yesterday) I read an article in the latest SHAPE magazine called 29 days, 29 gifts. In which the writer commits to giving a gift each day for 29 days, and reflects on her experiences. I don’t think that I opened to that article on Shrove Tuesday for no reason. It sparked an idea about what to do for lent – 40 days, 40 gifts.

Giving is often difficult for us to do except if an occasion calls for it. So committing to giving something to someone each day for 40 days is going to be difficult and will keep my eye on God’s gifts each day for 40 days. I see this as being rooted in developing a commitment to simplicity. As Richard Foster says in his book In Celebration of Discipline “Simplicity sets us free to receive the provision of God as a gift that is not ours to keep and can be freely shared with others.” Simplicity therefore goes hand in hand with giving. And so for these forty days I will be reflecting on God’s gifts to me, why I am so tied to things, and the ways in which that distracts me from God and from His Kingdom. The act that will encourage me to do this is the daily practice for forty days of giving.

I hope that by blogging about this experience I will a) be held accountable by others seeking spiritual growth, and b) will be able to share my reflections on simplicity with others. We all live in a consumer culture and questioning that can provide a lot of discomfort but ultimately I think it will lead us to a stronger connection with God.

May the lentern period be a profoundly deep and spiritual experience for you as we prepare to receive Christ’s gift of grace.