Lenten Plans

Photo Credit: Ryan Roth-Klinck

For those of you who are liturgically minded, you will know that tomorrow starts the season of Lent. Lent is my second favorite liturgical season (behind ordinary time). It is long and slow and steeped in not-yet. I am profoundly aware of how melodramatic that sounds, but there is something wonderful about anticipation (or prolonged frustration).

For Lent this year, I am going to try something new. I have been producing seasonal studies with the Missional Wisdom Foundation for a few years which have included a book study, a series of weekly guided group liturgies centered around a text from the Bible, and devotional essays that tie the two together.

But I love to try new things as long as I can do so from home. In leggings. I love being home.

Anyway.

I would like to maintain the bones of the project, but, instead of a typical book study, I would like to try something akin to a writing book study/pilgrimage. I am not sure exactly what to call it. Maybe we can figure that out together.

Here is my plan (although I have become extremely aware of how plans seem to go…):

• Weekly liturgies on Zoom using this free download: An Abundance of Ashes available on the Missional Wisdom Foundation’s Store.

• Read through Carlo Rovelli’s little book Seven Brief Lessons on Physics

• Write essays articulating the space between the Biblical passage and Rovelli’s book

• Writing practice

You knew that there would be writing practice. You had to.

Here’s how you can join me:

• Join me on Zoom, Tuesdays at 4:00 pm eastern time (starting on February 23rd) for a time of liturgy, or you can download it for use for your own small group (the Zoom link will be in the essays that will come out on Wednesdays here and through the Missional Wisdom Foundation’s “Wisdom for the Way”)

• Read through Carlo Rovelli’s little book Seven Brief Lessons on Physics (not necessary for doing the writings)

• Read the essays on this blog roll or subscribe to the Missional Wisdom Foundation’s “Wisdom for the Way”

• Use the writing prompts for writing practice (for writing practice instructions, please see my Writing as a Spiritual Practice course or visit this Missional Wisdom Foundation post: Writing Practice with Andrea Lingle) which will be inspired by the Rovelli book

• Join me at 3:45 on Tuesday afternoons on my Facebook page for a guided writing practice

Ok. If I have left out too many details, please let me know in the Comments below. If this works, I will start crafting liturgical writing practice thingies throughout the year. It might be great. It might change your life. It will probably help you lose that belly fat and teach you how to become maximally efficient. At the bare minimum it will make you fluent in six languages.

Or not.

If you don’t try, you will never know.