Our son Aiden attends kindergarten at a local Catholic school and he came home on Ash Wednesday with a dirty forehead and an announcement that we needed a family meeting right now. This is not usual - it kind of weirded me out - was I in trouble? I believe it was our first official family meeting. (I'm not sure why he wanted a meeting since he knows that much of what keeps his Daddy away from him at night is meetings. He's asked me in the past if I will ever be done with meetings - I've asked myself the same question more than once!)
With the family gathered around him he announced that he was giving up wrapped candy for Lent because Jesus gave up his life for him - what were the rest of going to give up? He had some suggestions: his 3 year old sister would give up gum, Mom and Mareesa would skip chocolate and Dad would stop drinking pop (thankfully not coffee).
We've done pretty well so far - even Sydney has not stumbled into her private stashes of Wrigley's (at least not that I know of). I've exchanged flavored water for pop (my wife says I'm cheating) and I'm finding it not much of sacrifice - but a nice change. Rebecca now walks around drinking pop and I've been snacking on leftover Christmas chocolates...
My personal Lenten tradition for the past 5-6 years has been to read one book on the message of the cross and do a teaching series on the topic. This year my book is "The Last Week" by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan. So far it has been an excellent day-by-day journey with Jesus through his final week using the gospel of Mark. My teaching series will be called "Prison Break" and will begin in a couple weeks and go until Easter. Here's some of the other books I've read during Lent:
God in Pain - Barbara Brown Taylor
The Darkness and the Dawn - Charles R. Swindoll
Windows on the Cross - Tom Smail
Recovering the Scandal of the Cross - Joel Green & Mark Baker
Meditations on the Cross - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The Cross of Christ - John Stott
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