When I committed to making this blog my Lenten discipline, I had no idea where it would lead.
I am sitting in a room at St. David's United Church in Leduc, waiting for the start of the Alberta and Northwest Conference Junior High Youth Rally. When I first arrived, only a few people involved with leadership were here, and there was some busyness associated with moving stuff into the church and setting things up for the rally band and so on. Since I had no specific job to do, I busied myself with looking around, reading bulletin boards and other such things that help one to get a 'feel' for the place. I expect it will feel a lot different in just a couple of hours as more and more youth arrive and the energy level, especially after a long drive to get here for some of them, picks up. Right now there is relative peace, although the numbers and the busyness are increasing even as I sit and type. I'm sitting in one of the rooms that will be a breakout room during the rally, but right now it is pretty much empty. It also serves as the church library. The librarian has taken initiative to select a number of Lenten devotional books and set them out on a cart for people to browse and perhaps adopt as the one they will use for their own Lenten time devotions. There is a good variety with suitability for different age ranges covered by the various options. The one that caught my eye is called "Chocolate for Lent". A catchy title to be sure, so naturally it was the one I picked up. It turns out that it is based on the movie "Chocolat" which I've had on my list of "to-be-viewed" movies for quite a while now. It's now moved up a little on my general to-do list! All of this browsing and waiting led me to consider once again the purpose I had in mind by choosing this as my Lenten discipline. There are plenty of Lenten devotional books out there, and it was not my intention to add to the list of them by my daily writings. Although having said that I recognise that my first week of reflection was kind of like a set of devotions on the practice of devotions. No, that was not my intention, but I also understand that it might end up that way for some people as well as myself. It has also served as a kind of travelogue and journal. And sometimes it is just a place where I can sit and muse.
What I do know is that while I'm looking forward to the Youth Rally very much, I'm also looking forward to my trip home tomorrow afternoon and being able to spend the rest of Lent in my own place. It seems interesting to me that I titled my reflection for Sunday "Coming Home" with reference to the parable of the Prodigal Son which is in the gospel reading for Sunday, but I've connected that title in many other ways already - a possible lead-in to my reflection on Sunday and perhaps a certain insight into what's happening on this particular Lenten journey for me - which has very much been about physical journey as it has been about spiritual journey.
Chocolate for Lent - perhaps not, but a little home cookin' is something I anticipate...
Leduc, Alberta
March 12, 2010
