Put Something Down, Pick Something Up

What is a time of giving things up really all about? Purging, losing a few guilty pleasures? Do we look at this as forty days of self-imposed punishment for gluttony, or do we look at this as forty days to be purified and made stronger, more whole? Do you inhibit yourself and your choices for true health, or does it turn out to be rather a false virtue?

In a new year flourish the last couple of months have been pretty busy, but I find a habit of striving has kicked in. Striving is not beautiful. It can come across as being clingy and fearfully intense, in one-way transmit mode, no fruit-bearing, just a desperate noise like a 'clanging cymbal'. Of course, there are times for intense productivity, but there are also times to put the plough down so you can carefully pick up the fruits as they appear.

This next forty days I'm hoping to simplify efforts – look for more quietness, focus on the things that matter, review, make good what I have and give meaning to what is, rather than be hung up on what isn't. Actually, I'm finding it more helpful to think of the next forty days we call Lent as a time of refinement. I'm going to stand in faith that in forty days I will—with hands free—have been able to pick up some beautiful fruit.

Put something down, pick something up. 

{Today's Soundtrack: Damien Jurado - Saint Bartlett}