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Getting ready for Lent

Lent is a special time for me. It is a time of introspection and mathematics: As I look inwardly at myself, I often add and subtract a few necessities. It kicks off with Ash Wednesday, a solemn day for me and my denomination and it will end on the eve of Easter.
Deacon Phil and I will - on Ash Wednesday - be making ashes available at the north end of the Frankford Terminal beginning at 6:00 am for the early morning commuters. Ash Wednesday is an opportunity for those who are separated from the Christian Church to return.
The forty days of Lent are days of introspection when we delve deeply into ourselves through subtraction by fasting and rest, as well as days of addition, when we add study, service, and prayer specific to the season to our spirituality.
I read, and pray the Daily Office every day, which guides me to lessons which focus on the Lenten themes of the church; in theory, as I pray the Daily Office, I am praying alongside Christians of every denomination, but especially Episcopalians and Anglicans, who follow the daily office. Historically Anglican clergy have been required to pray the office every day, yet in recent years, this has dropped off the required list to the encouraged list for the North American province of the Anglican Communion. In the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania, some of our clergy have forgone the Daily Office to participate in the Bishops Bible Challenge, developed and encouraged by the leadership of St. Thomas Church, Whitemarsh.
I think it is difficult for those of us who serve others every day of our lives to come up with new ways to serve others during Lent. What I try to do is be more deliberate about the why I serve my neighbors, rather than the pro forma, this is what I do, mentality. If I think through and pray through what I am up to during Lent, it is very helpful and encourages me to dig deeper in my life and improves my world view.
Sometimes I add a reading for Lent; this year I’ll be reading Richard Haas’ A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order, published by Random House in 2017.  As one who is highly interested in creation theology it is always important for me to keep up on how the people on earth interact with each other, as we continue to be involved in God’s creation through at the least, the dominion that God gave us.
I also fast; this year I only wanted to eat produce that I grew myself in my aquaponics system, but I did not plan early enough to make that happen. So this Lent, I am focusing on increasing my produce yield to enable me to be self-sufficient for the fifty days of Easter; we’ll see how that goes.
I pray my prayers every day and continuing with special Lenten intentions is a good discipline.
I hope that you have a holy, inspiring, and life-giving Lent and that the forty days may be for you and those around you, an inspiration.

Peace and blessings,
Jon +

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