The season of Lent, to my mind, mirrors quite aptly the experience of retreating into bareness and emptiness, vast expansive nothingness. It represents to me an opportunity to combat with our egos – our own yearly combat with the devil. Much as what Christ undertook at the onset of his miniistry on earth. He was emptied of self but also found affirmation  and clarity of mind on the task that  lay ahead of him.  I take away from that, during this season of Lent, the simple lesson that while  the emptiness and emormity of a self-induced desert experience appear daunting,  the  joy of receiving affirmation and pruspose ought to remain at the fore of  my mind.  The season of lent,  and the bodily observance of self denial and retreat into sorrow, heat, emptiness ought not to be something I despise and dread. I need to dig deeper to embrace the desert and spend forty days within it. It is worth it in the end, as Christ’s example illustrates.

As such, I resolve to remain still, to treat the desert as a friend ad not a foe. To  appreciate the experience of withdrwal from the usual harriedness of life and wanting for more in the knwowledge that while my body hungers, there ais a  greater, intangible life giving Bread that I will receive.  I will resolve to continue to fast and pray during this season of Lent in the assurance that while I thirst the promise of receiving a water  that quenches a our deepest thirst (s) still stands.