Ash Wednesday 2021
Last year, just before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, someone asked me if I planned to give anything up for Lent. My answer was that I hadn't yet decided, but had a feeling that "something would emerge". I didn't in 2020 make any decision about giving something up. In the end, at the start of the 4th week of Lent our 1st lockdown began and that included closing all public worship where people physically gathered together. So what I eventually gave up was 'going to church' for the rest of Lent and many weeks afterwards.
I didn't give up church, just the regular habit of going to a church building to worship with others - at least temporarily. Church is a community of Christian believers. Those local communities have continued to worship, pray and care for others throughout the pandemic in all sorts of creative ways on and off line.
So, how am I going to observe Lent this year? One thing I am going to try to do is focus on kindness, giving it and receiving it. The church, where I currently serve as a retired priest, is encouraging acts of kindness during Lent, with a different theme for each week's kindness focus. I aim to take part in that. In addition I aim to post something on the theme of kindness as often as I can during Lent. I hope to make these positive, a way to rejoice in the kindness of God and the kindness I have seen or heard about in others. I will not be telling you about any acts of kindness I have done. Also, I will not be telling you to be more kind, as for some reading this that might feel like a step too far just now.
If you came to this post hoping to read more about Ash Wednesday, you might like to look at previous Ash Wednesday posts, for example:
Ash Wednesday:grateful for ash
Contemplating Mortality on Ash Wednesday - this might help you to understand the drawing at the head of today's post.
Image Credit: Pixy clip arts, CC licence
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