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It’s fast approaching the church season of Lent.  This time of the church year was created as part of the early practices of the people to help prepare themselves for Easter.  The idea was to focus on spiritual growth and to make yourself right with God.  The season begins on Ash Wednesday which just happens to fall on March 5th this year.
Seasons of the church year are a unique way to mark time.  Each season developed over the millennia to what it is now, but all started as traditions and rituals to help people connect with God.  When we don’t know the deeper meaning behind the seasons it can seem like just going through the motions because it’s what we’ve always done, but for me there is a power in being called to a time of getting ready like advent or a time of sacrifice like Lent.  Pentecost is the season of renewal, epiphany is the season of light, Easter actually lasts for 50 days because we have so much to celebrate, and ordinary time captures the day to day regularness of life.
I know that we are in a season of pentecost in our own ministry as we continue to live into this time of planting a new faith community.  Sometimes the season of our soul does not match the season on the church calendar, but with enough practice we can connect those seasons to the reality of our lives and be spiritually enriched and supported as a result.
Often as part of Lent people give something up.  It’s a way to help yourself pay attention by denying a regular habit.  Every time you would have a soda or say a curse word you are supposed to recenter on God.  Sometimes people use Lent as a time to take on a new practice.  This year, at the traditional church I serve, I’m inviting the congregation to keep salt & light journals for the season.  This is a practice of noticing the ways that we are salt & light (which Jesus proclaimed that we are in Matthew 5:13-14) and recording them so that we can share and celebrate the ways God is in our lives on Easter Sunday.
If you want to make your own journal just use these two questions to get started:
How do you bring zest and flavor to the world?
How do you make life brighter or shine light into the dark corners of injustice?

Seasons help orient us and give us time to practice who we are becoming.  What is now will not always be and as we do something intnetional with our time we participate in that holy progression.

May Lent for you be a season of reflection and learning.

-Eilidh