Lent and Ash

My good friend is giving up facebook for Lent. As the days leading up to Easter I felt like there was something that I should also find to give up for 40 days - but for what purpose? 

In the struggle for the distinction between what is "Catholic" and what is "Christian," Lent can easily slide into the background for an evangelical in America. But since when do we let culture dictate how we are spiritually led?

This morning I came across an article from Christianity today, originally written in the 1960's, then republished in 2000.

Here is the concluding paragraph:

"Lent can become a time when material things are put again in their proper secondary position; when we see in the spiritual the unconquerable forces of life. It can become a time of self-examination, when we reflect upon our present position in the pilgrimage and check our directions. It can become a time of personal readjustment, not through mental resolutions to do better but through yielding ourselves afresh to the God who demands to be obeyed. And it can become a time when, by following the battered path to Calvary, we identify ourselves once again with the Saviour who makes all things new.

The task of the Church during Lent is to make this experience real to the people who are Christ's body. The form is unimportant and may well vary from group to group and from taste to taste. What is all important is that the form support, not obstruct, the way of the Holy Spirit of God who brings life to ritual and free worship alike, and who turns ashes into new men."

I haven't decided exactly what this looks like for me yet this year -but the challenge that it beings is clearer: to reflect on Christ's sufferings, and reevaluate my attachment to things "things" in my life.