Lenten Re-Boot

There comes a time when every Lenten journey ceases to be the serious, meditative search for healing and reconciliation into which it was entered and becomes a half-assed limp towards the finish line, AKA Easter.

AKA the day when I can FINALLY have chocolate again, as well as alcohol, although I may have broken that last one a handful of times in the last couple of weeks...and when that becomes the point? When the victory of the open tomb becomes obscured by visions of Cadbury eggs? It's time to re-boot.

Turns out the second family-wide bought of the stomach flu for the winter was enough to release my somewhat tenuous grip on quiet, redefining spiritual disciplines. I spent far too much of this past week either gripping the toilet seat myself or trying to teach the resident preschooler and toddler the proper receptacles for sudden onslaughts of unpleasant bodily fluids. The latter attempts were all in vain, but it seems to me that's what parenting oftentimes is: a thousand shots in the dark until, miraculously, a bullseye.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

There are some things I sorely want. These are all places I feel the Holy Spirit tirelessly and cheerfully pushing me, despite my stance as a tortoise on Quaaludes.

I want to start consistently waking up early enough to completely finish Morning Prayer before my kids wake up. I had this down for the better part of a year before it began to unravel, and I miss it. I miss it a lot.

I want to start incorporating more contemplative elements like Lectio Divina and the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises into my prayer life.

I am proud of myself for my strides towards daily intercessory prayer; I want to both continue and enrich this practice.

Mr. Milkweed and I pay far more lip-service to the desire to pray together than making actual, on-the-ground efforts.

Lastly...and contradictorily...I want to stop being so hard on myself for continually missing the mark. No, this is not an excuse to sink into inaction, but if I've given something my best effort and life intervenes, then life just intervenes. And I get up and try again the next day, grateful to still be the recipient of the time and gifts and energy that allow me to choose to make changes.

Lent: almost over, and yet beginning again, thanks be to God.