What if you made personal growth and renewal your theme for the next six weeks?

One of our readers reminded me over the weekend that a window of opportunity is opening today… Here’s what s/he had to say:

I often think of the Lenten season as a period of time to clean out the clutter in my house as well as my mind.  A time of reflection and prayer.  A time of growth and renewal.  A time of personal preparation for Easter Sunday.  We only have 40 days, so let’s start preparing ourselves…

— xelliot123

And although I’d already written a different post for today, I wanted to give a nod to yesterday’s Mardi Gras, aka Fat Tuesday, and today’s Ash Wednesday, the first of Lent’s 40 days.

Oops, it seems that how you count the 40 days of Lent is up for debate:

Lent is a forty-day period before Easter. It begins on Ash Wednesday. We skip Sundays when we count the forty days, because Sundays commemorate the Resurrection. Lent begins on 9 March 2011 and ends on 23 April 2011, which is the day before Easter.

— Ken Collins

Or, if you don’t like that explanation, here’s another:

The observation of Lent begins on the first Sunday after Ash Wednesday (the first day we are sure to gather together), and ends at sundown, Holy Thursday, although the season starts on Ash Wednesday. So strictly speaking, what we call Lent is more than 40 days.

— WhitestoneJourna.com

I for one will just accept the Lenten season as beginning on Ash Wednesday and ending on a glorious Easter Sunday morning!  (And personally, I do like the idea of having Sundays “off”…)

Window of Opportunity???

Now those of you who frequent BouncebackCafe.com already know why xelliott123’s note struck a chord with me: Clutter is, unfortunately, one of those “holes in my sidewalk” that PattiAnn wrote about yesterday:

…these “hang ups” keep showing up in our lives, not because we get more of this challenge than anyone else, [but] because when we face this situation, we get stuck – over and over and over again.  Each of us finds different holes in our sidewalks.

— PattiAnn

So, between my friends PattiAnn and xelliot123, I’ve decided that Lent 2011 offers me a window of opportunity:

Window of Opportunity: A short period of time during which an opportunity must be acted on or missed.

— Investorwords.com

Yes, “short” really is one of the operative words, the other one being “opportunity.”  Isn’t it strange that as I count off the six weeks on my calendar, Easter Sunday (April 24) seems soooo far off… but when the time comes to look backwards, I’d like to know that I’d truly leveraged this opportunity, that I’d transformed those six weeks into “a time of growth and renewal.”  And suddenly the time seems to collapse in on itself and six weeks seem like no time at all.

Time Warp

Even though you are reading this on Wednesday 3/9/11 or beyond, I’m writing it on the day before Fat Tuesday… and YES, I am going to do a wee bit of Mardi Gras feasting before the Lenten famine – YAY for Fat Tuesday:

Mardi Gras, literally “Fat Tuesday,” has grown in popularity in recent years as a raucous, sometimes hedonistic event. But its roots lie in the Christian calendar, as the “last hurrah” before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. That’s why the enormous party in New Orleans, for example, ends abruptly at midnight on Tuesday, with battalions of streetsweepers pushing the crowds out of the French Quarter towards home.

— AmericanCatholic.org

And I’m also using today and tomorrow to figure out exactly how I can make the forty days (mas or menos) between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday a period of:

• Growth and renewal
• Cleaning out the clutter in my house as well as my mind
• Reflection and prayer

And, add to those intentions a tradition of helping some folks who are in need… usually that means I “give up something” for Lent and then contribute the funds I would have spent to a particular charity project. This year I’m curious how that tradition will play out and I’m looking forward to a nice surprise.

Intentions, Commitment, Action, Trust

I am feeling intimidated in the face of the list of Lenten objectives I’ve just set for myself… and, although I don’t have all the answers or processes in mind as I write, I do have an intention.  And a commitment.

Good intentions are at least, the seed of good actions; and every one ought to sow them, and leave it to the soil and the seasons whether he or any other gather they fruit.

— William Temple, Sr

So, I will do some and learn some until, day by day, I begin to see the results that my good intention and commitment produce.

The reason that choosing and acting Lent is so important is that we are body-persons.  We experience things with our senses, relish them with our imaginations and we share in God’s own creative and loving activity when our hearts and hands work together for and with others.

— Collaborative Ministry Office
at Creighton University

The idea of being a body-person intrigues me – it inspires me to trust that, aided and abetted by my sensory perceptions, my imagination and my true efforts, God’s good graces will guide my heart and hands to transform this Lenten season into a time of growth and renewal.

What about you – how would your May 2011 be different if you made personal growth and renewal your theme for the next six weeks?