lent: day one

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of the season of Lent. Lent is the forty days leading up to Easter and in the liturgical church traditions, Lent is a season of fasting to prepare for the good news of Jesus' resurrection. I have participated in Lent for the past 8 years, usually by fasting one item (coffee, TV, Internet, etc). This year I will attempt to "unplug" from consumer culture. This means that I will not purchase anything other than groceries for the next 40 days. No coffee shop trips, no eating out, no buying clothes, no mp3's. I feel like Christians need to embrace the call of simple living that permeates scripture. I also feel like I suck at this particular call of Christ.

I suspect that the next 40 days will be difficult and will hopefully call me to re-examine how I am living out the call of a homeless teacher from 2,000 years ago. I will be blogging about this experience here and will try to be honest about my struggles and (presumably) the freedom that I find as well.