For a few years, my middle child was afraid of Ash Wednesday. He’d sit patiently through the homily, mumble along with Psalm 51 as best he could, but balk at the main event: the imposition of ashes. So he’d stay behind in the pew while his brother, sister, and whichever parent wasn’t leading worship filed…
Category: Protestant Spirituality
Don’t Be a Hero! And Other Guidelines for Choosing a Lenten Discipline
How should you decide what you are going to give up—or take up—for Lent this year? Here’s my plan: I’m going to wake up an hour earlier than usual, depriving myself of sleep and devoting that hour to prayer; read meditatively through the whole New Testament, paying particular attention to living the Sermon on the…
Will you grow spiritually this year?
My kids were each wearing blue the other morning—Duke blue—when my seven-year-old daughter slipped into my bedroom as I was getting ready for work and saw the narrow blue stripes on my dress shirt. “Oh, good!” she declared. “You’re wearing blue too!” “Yes,” I said, “but I’m about to put on a green sweater.” She…