LentToday is the first Sunday of Lent, that 6-week period in the church calendar that precedes Easter. I was a latecomer to Lent. Growing up in a Baptist minister’s home, I rarely heard of Lent. It was not until I was a seminary student that I was introduce to Lent as an experience that might have meaning to me.

Most think of Lent as a time of deprivation, an emphasis on giving something up. One year I gave up meat. One year I gave up sweets. One year (wink) I gave up cheap wine. However, Lent has taught me that deprivation is not the goal. The goal is awareness of my attachments. Deprivation is merely the means for becoming more aware.

Only by giving something up do I become aware of my attachment to that thing. Only by consciously stopping something I do routinely do I become aware of how mindlessly I typically engage in that activity. My conscious deprivation gradually produces the awareness of my unconscious attachment. I can walk through a day mostly on autopilot until I make a decision to change a routine.

This past year of the pandemic, we have all given some things up, whether or not we wanted to. We have all lost some things or some people. More immediately, this past week, many of us in Texas experienced a new level of deprivation with the winter storm that took out our power and water, not to mention our sense of security.

My goal during this Lenten season is to pay attention to things I/we have lost or given up, but to see them not as deprivations but as invitations to awareness of how much I take for granted, how much I live on autopilot.