40 Days

I am recovering from wearing my church lady hat the past few days. I had volunteered to compile our church's daily Lenten devotional, which isn't as "Holy" of a deal as it sounds. Thankfully my partner in the project doesn't need to wear a church lady hat. She is a real church lady.

By this morning almost all was done, except for one thing. I still needed to write my own contribution. I wasn't avoiding it, in typical form, just putting it off. Without trying I woke up fifteen minutes before my alarm. First lines, interesting thoughts, and metaphors were there inside of me rolling around fully formed, waiting for an exit.So I got up, went to the keyboard and wrote. To my great horror, it came out as a poem.

I'm pretty sure it's terrible. See, I don't do poetry. I interrupted Princess Sparkle's virtual school day and asked her to read it for me. I had to be sure the work I had done in the name of the Lord qualified as a poem, and didn't just look like one when I squinted my eyes and couldn't read the words. She made a little mad face and told me she was jealous. Evoking envy in the poet laureate of the family wasn't my goal, but for 30 seconds or so I proudly considered myself a poet.

Then I reread it. An obnoxious inner critic already on the scene quickly ripped me a new one. But time was of the essence so I sent it initially without an ounce of sender's remorse. Now a few hours later, I'm pretty sure it's somewhere between garbage and "poetry."

So given that it's almost Lent, I was thinking: I haven't given up anything for Lent in a few years - okay, make that a few decades -but how about taking up something instead of giving something up? For forty days I could wake up 20 minutes early. I wouldn't be allowed to so much as tell myself I'm useless without coffee. I could strap myself to my desk and write. I would be "giving up" twenty minutes of sleep.I have no clue how it would work if I try this technique again, especially if I add the often useless art of "trying" to the mix.The worse thing that can happen is I end up with 40 more days of possible garbage. I'm pretty sure in some way it would at least be useful.

Even though she didn't have to, the real church lady told me she loved my poem. Not that I believe her, of course. It's not like a church lady would tell me if she hated it. Inner critic alert! How quickly I can move to thinking it's much closer to garbage than poetry. 

Do you think Lent can be on a five day work week?

Margo M

Life in the Short Lane