Rules

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I like this.  It reminds me that each day I start over.

Lent is a time of giving up.  People talk about giving up chocolate or facebook or drinking or smoking or swearing.  What I think is so interesting about this practice is that right after Easter everyone goes back to doing what they were doing before. 

Yesterday my daughter got into the car after Religious Education class and told me, “Guess what Mom, during Lent, Sunday’s don’t count!” I asked her what she meant and she told me, “If you give up something, Sunday’s don’t count.  You can do that thing on Sunday.”   I have never heard that one before but it tops the list of absurdities in my mind. 

The other thing I recently heard is that from Ash Wednesday to the first Sunday of Lent is the “Porch of Lent” and it is really just leading us into the “house” of Lent so we don’t have to “officially start giving up anything” until the first Sunday.  This has me confused…wait…but Sundays “don’t count”. 

C’mon….seriously.

We will do anything to not have to do anything. 

The practice of giving up something for Lent is not to torture us – it’s not to make it harder to find God.  It’s to make it easier.  We give up something that stands in the way of our relationship with God and our relationships with others.  Because in our lives, the place we most frequently meet God is within our relationship with other people. 

Looking at it that way, if our “giving up” allows us more time with God and more time with our loved ones, wouldn’t we want that every day? 

As I get older, I don’t want to figure out ways to “get out” of God’s rules for me. 

I guess it’s natural as a kid to want to figure out a way around some of the boundaries that are put in place by parents and by God.  It’s natural to push up against authority and want to see what you can get away with. 

As an adult, I want those rules.  I need those rules.  I need the reminder of Lent.  I need to be reminded to slow down, pray, fast, give to the poor, and confess.  I need to be reminded that I don’t make the rules.   

Jesus died on a cross for me and for you.  He saved us.

Once you know this, I mean when you really know this and truth of it sinks into your soul, you will have new life.  You can’t help it.  As the quote says above, you will want to start that life “with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”

In order to get on with the new we have to let go of the old.

Less facebook = more face time.

Less wine = less whine.

Less gossip = more understanding.

Less chocolate/chips/soda = more awareness.

Less me = more God.

 

Go ahead, let go of something.  Shed the old and make room for the new. Easter is coming.

©2012 Sue Bidstrup, Great Big Yes™ All Rights Reserved