Today is the beginning of Lent.  Yayyyy!  Lent is one of my all time favorite spiritual holidays.  This might sound strange as I am neither Catholic or Episcopalian.  But I LOVE the practice of time limited renunciation.

40 days of fasting.  Gotta love it.  Well, I love my take on Lent.  Here’s how it works in my head; give up something with the understanding that this “giving up” is purifying you…cleansing you from the inside so that you are more able to attune yourself to the magnificence of the TRUTH of who you are.  What’s not to love?

This year, I’ve talked my father into playing Lent with me (is that too irreverent, playing Lent?).  So he and I are giving up driving over the speed limit.  Yayyy!  He’s also neither Catholic or Episcopalian.  He doesn’t even lean in the spiritual direction, but he does like to play.  So we are playing Lent together.

I know most people give up something like meat, cigarettes, chocolate.  I think those are all great.  The last couple of years, I’ve been enjoying giving up things that are not ingestible, like driving fast.

Here are a couple of really great things that I’ve heard people talk about giving up this year:

Disappointment

Regret

Shame

Feeling Inadequate

Blame

Don’t you wanna play?  What do you want to give up?

Here's my 78 year old father jumping on top of the Zugspitz.