Here it is, Lent is almost over... and I have done nothing Lent-ish at all.

I want to do better!

It's a bit late, but I want to have some kind of deeply moving Lenten experience. I think. I guess. Maybe. But I wake up, full of the best intentions - and immediately I get caught up in the details of my every day routine. And it seems any chance of a spiritual Lenten experience is quickly overwhelmed by a counter piled with dirty dishes and the chaos that seems to make up most days. I am weeks... months... years!... behind on a million things, kids and grandkids stop by, dinner is always late (when I make plenty, no one is here; and when I decide not to make anything - everyone is!).

Lent hasn’t got a chance!

Maybe that’s why Jesus was all the time going off by himself to pray. You need to “come away to a lonely place.” You need to step out of your everyday routine before you get swallowed up by it.

So maybe that would be a good place to start.

And then I am thinking, should it really be about having a “deeply moving experience” anyway? It’s not about having a nice experience - like having a great slice of pizza or seeing a good movie. It’s about, well, being transformed. It’s about becoming the person God wants me to become, the person he had in mind when he first thought me up... and the person I have wandered so far away from being.

It’s not about an experience... it’s about drawing closer to God.

It’s about coming to see more clearly just how much God loves me, how much he loves us.

Now, the disconcerting thing in all of this... I have been here before!

I thought I had done this “Lenten Journey” thing before, somewhere on this site. When I finally found it (this site is not exactly a model of organization!), I was disheartened to see I haven’t changed at all! I am in exactly the same place I was six years ago.

Oh well.

I am hoping God is really patient.