Today Lent starts.
For the past couple of years I have enjoyed reading the Grace Lent Blog and will also be dipping into this Lent Blog this year.
Lent is a time to contemplate – but I have ben thinking more on this indulgence idea. It seems to make more sense to me.
WE make a big thing of Christmas, with partiesand fun leading up to marking the birth of Christ. When it comes to remembering the resurrection, the single most amazing event this universe has ever experienced – we stop eating chocolate for 40 days! I don’t wish to sound dis-respectful, but surely that makes little sense! Should we not be getting excited as we look forwward to the second coming of Jesus?
Last year we marked St Hereberts Day on March 20th. It was an excuse to get friends around for a meal. The Bishop of Carlisle in thirteen hundred and something granted 40 days of indulgence to those who marked this saints day. That seemed to be a good reason to mark the day to me.
A few years ago I remember when the Gills won the play off final at Wembley. A group of us were camping in Dorset and we drove to Wembley and back. I remember the frustration and constraint many of us felt on the journey home as we all really wanted to be partying down the pub. It seemed false.
I think I probably need to research the whole ‘thing’ of Lent more but this kind of feels the same to me. As I look to Easter, as I dwell on the character of Jesus, as I think what he has domne for me, as I consider how I can develop my relationship I want to indulge, not abstain! Have I got it so incredibly wrong?
The Shiny Headed Prophet 
lolol I love it. I don’t know about Lent as it’s not a festival I observe, but yes, Christ is definitely something to celebrate and enjoy and feast upon.
I like the idea of an indulgent build up to Easter. I think it has to be a good thing to be genuinely frugle or minimalist but if this seems contrived and false then it surely can loose all of its integrity and intention! Communion is also something that is perhaps not ‘celebrated’ enough. Its a hard one as it can be so right to be sombre, reflective and subdued.. But perhaps we may have just lost a little bit of the full picture and focused a tad to much on the death part and not enough on the joy of ressurrection.