Blogging in Lent

Last night's Ash Wednesday service really has me thinking about the power and pitfalls and sharing and writing about spiritual disciplines. As I talked about in my sermon last night (which I really hope to post today) there may be some power in sharing with each other the things we are doing during Lent to enhance our relationship with God and to increase our obedience to God. If we share them with each other, we may encourage each other. But, as I also shared, we have to be careful that our sharing is not boasting, that we are not doing it to "show off" our piety. I was in a meeting with a colleague the other day and he paused to get some juice from his office refrigerator. He apologized for interrupting and mentioned that he was fasting. For some reason, either the way it was shared or because of my relationship with the person, I didn't hear it at all as boastful. In fact, it really made me consider my own relationship with the discipline of fasting. Here was one of my colleagues, someone far busier and more overworked than me and he could manage to undertake this discipline. So why couldn't I. When we share, we may encourage each other and we may also gain some degree of accountability. If my friend had asked for a sandwich, I may have reminded him that he was fasting. If I were to say that I was going to observe the sabbath every week in lent and you saw me working on the day I had set aside, you might inquire as to why.

So with all this, I still don't have a clear answer on the appropriate level of sharing. So far, you won't find a list of the disciplines I will undertake during Lent here on the weblog.

peace,

will