Lenten Discipline

This year, I decided to adopt my friend Jon Arnold's "invention" of disposing of a bag of stuff each day of Lent. 40 bags of stuff in 40 days. It can be stuff to be thrown away, recycled, donated or gifted to friends. These are plastic grocery sack-size bags--not garbage bags. I suppose if you have a serious hoarding problem, the garbage bag might be in order. But for folks like me, who are merely disorganized, a grocery bag is do-able and helpful.

Thus far, I've gathered a bag of trash (expired medicines, make-up and sunscreens, along with empty bottles of lotions and potions) from the bathroom, a bag of books, a bag of linens, a bag of magazines (to be recycled) and a bag of kitchen stuff.

My daughter wanted to know what my bags have to do with church and God. I reminded her how much time I spend looking for things and how stressed out I get when I can't find things. "Do you think that's really how God wants me to spend my time? Don't you think God has better plans for me? And that maybe if I spend less time looking for stuff, I could spend more time doing the things God would like for me to do." She seemed down with that. Although I think she doubts that simply removing 40 bags of stuff from the house will keep me from loosing track of things.

Time will tell. Hope everyone is having a transformative Lent.