Lent Archives - Ann Freeman Price

Following Up on Lent

Ann — Mon, 02 May 2016 22:33:00 +0000

Following Up On Lent
At the beginning of Lent I wrote about loving it. Now a few weeks after Lent, I need to follow up on it a little.
It ended up being a strange Lent, because two and a half weeks after Ash Wednesday I had a flare-up of existing back pain which landed me in the emergency room twice and in the hospital for two days. Through all of that I took my Lent book and continued to write the daily chants that I had committed to write——and it helped.
It helped because the chants I wrote were connected to the study subjects and then I wrote more chants that connected to pain and healing and chaos. And wherever I was it helped me to sing.
On February 27th I wrote:
Stay Real with God Chant
stay real with God
remember God is love
no need to hide – no need to fear
no need to pretend for God is near
and loves
stay real with God
—————
On March 12th I wrote:
Ground of Rest Chant
Show me the way out of the maze I’m in,
Guide me in finding your true way,
Pain has slowed me down,
Help me find the ground of rest where you await and heal.
—————
On March 19th, at home again, and separate from the Lent study, I wrote:
Pain Chant
take away the pain, O God
take away the pain, O God
when it grabs – when it hurts
when there’s nothing else that works
take away the pain, if possible
(whisper) now
—————
During Holy Week, I started (at least chant-wise) re-writing the book, and on the 39th day of Lent I wrote:
Be In the Middle (Chant)
be in the middle of where it is scarey
be in middle of where there is pain
don’t run away – don’t cover up
stay – and grit your teeth
stay
—————
I still find Lent challenging, calling to my depths, and I do love it.

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I Love Lent

Ann — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 02:51:37 +0000

I Love Lent
I LOVE Lent and I don’t know if you’re even supposed to. But here I am anyway, loving it on the sixth day of Lent.
I’m using a book this year titled “Forty Days of Decrease—A Different Kind of Hunger. A Different Kind of Fast,” by Alicia Britt Chole.
Each day it has a different kind of fast. Yesterday’s discipline was to fast from a tidy faith. And that was so good for me to think about because I’m a person who questions and sometimes doubts.
I have always loved how patient Jesus was with Thomas after the resurrection, and by now Jesus knows that I need that kind of patience too. I’ve been writing a chant for each day to coincide with the theme and the words to the chant for today are:
Untidy Faith Chant
(Fifth Day of Lent)
my faith is not stuffed in a box and tied with a little red bow
with all the questions answered and complete with creeds I know
instead my faith is spread all over and question after question sticks out
and mixed in with the questions is a sizeable amount of doubt
but Jesus deals – with me and my faith (and its questions)
Jesus deals – with me and my faith (with its doubt)
Jesus always says “keep asking – I’m here” 
Jesus says “it’s all about love.”
© Copyright 2016 by Ann Freeman Price
And that’s me—I love the thinking and the figuring out and the creating and all of that goes along with my idea of Lent.

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On the Brink of Lent

Ann — Tue, 17 Feb 2015 02:44:30 +0000

On the Brink of Lent
This year I have made multiple plans for Lent and am now excited that Ash Wednesday is just around the corner.
Years ago when my children were young, I wrote an activity for every day of Lent for us to do as a family—keep a calendar of sunrises and sunsets to see how the days do lengthen; having a Stone Soup party; making pretzels; creating a spring mobile; having a wonder bowl; writing an Easter litany, and on and on.
Now the children are grown and I find myself making a Lenten plan just for me. The other night I was reading in the magazine Weavings, an article titled “Keep In Touch,” and it gifted me with my outline for Lent.
My plan is titled “Staying in Touch During Lent” and it has three parts: Staying in touch with those around me, with my truest self, and with God.
Staying in Touch With Those Around Me—goes back several years to a time when I was down in the dumps. It happened to be around Lent, and a friend of mine said, “Why don’t you try contacting somebody each day during Lent and letting them know you’re thinking about them.” I did that and my “down-in-the-dumps” left.
In its place has been a rich practice of calling people who live too far for me to see them often, or contacting people that are just going through a hard time, or reaching out to people I just want to be sure I stay in touch with. And I keep track in a special calendar of these calls (or lunches, or over-nights), so that I keep myself accountable and can know that it’s been six weeks since I talked to this one or that one and they’re due for a call.
For this section I’m also going to explore whether there’s a way to expand “those around me” to beyond my friends and into the world.
Staying in Touch With My Truest Self—this section involves a little book titled 40 Soul-Stretching Conversations—writing a spiritual journal with Joan Chittister.” She writes a short piece, she gives the reader either a short piece of scripture or a quote by someone, and then provides space for me to write a few sentences of reflection.
This section also asks me to be in relationship to food in a healthy, reasonable way. There’s an empty bowl on my dining room table that Thich Nhat Hanh refers to as a bowl of appropriate measure. It reminds me.
Staying in Touch With God— This one involves a short daily meditation time (can be with a mindfulness walk, a sitting prayer time, or a movement dance). And finally this section ends each evening with a time of prayer, a time of me questioning my day and a short journal entry of how I lived in the middle of it, and ending with a song.
And so it’s an intentional staying in touch during Lent. Join me on part of it or all of it, or at the least, wish me well.

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