Lent: Time again to take on as well as give up

As we enter another Lenten season, are you looking for ways to experience contemplation and renewal, rather than 40 days of trudging forward to the same old dismal dirge? One of my most popular columns bears repeating.
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During the Lenten season that starts this Wednesday, why not take on a meaningful discipline that will enrich your daily life and may continue to do so beyond the 40 days plus Sundays? Here are a few suggestions:

• Make a list of people and places, events and things that are important to you, and focus on one entry each day in prayer. (You'll need 46 items to cover Ash Wednesday through Holy Saturday.) Possible sources: your address book; Christmas cards received last year; your church directory; photos on your shelves or computer; your e-mail contact list; favorite cities and vacation spots; colleagues and merchants with whom you do business; friends and mentors from the past; in-laws and neighbors; your friends' parents; your parents' friends.....
• Before each Sunday, read and meditate on the appointed lectionary readings. At church, notice how the elements of the service – music, sermon, and prayers – carry out the theme. Perhaps write a few notes in your worship bulletin to remind you of your impressions. After church, find some time to reflect, noting topics you'd like to research or discuss. A great resource is http://divinity.library.vanderbilt.edu/lectionary/
• Get a blank book or a stack of large index cards. (An inexpensive spiral-bound children's sketch book works perfectly.) At the close of each day, divide one page into four quadrants: draw one line down the center vertically, and one across the center horizontally. Using the four sections, list something you experienced or achieved that day from each of these four categories:
  
  1) something I gave to or did for another;
  2) something I learned or created;
  3) a gift or blessing I received;
  4) a concern I release to God.
  
  You may choose to write more or less, as time and inspiration dictate.
• Go on a diet from negative thoughts.* Fill your mind instead with positive affirmations, either through Bible verses or your own words. Write such useful phrases on eye-appealing cards, and keep them in a small basket on your desk or wherever you often could use some "redirection."
• Just as you address God with thanks and praise before you offer your humble petitions, begin with a word of praise or thanks before any time you offer someone a word of critique or revision. Continue this discipline beyond Lent, forever.
• Forgive, forgive, forgive. Forgive others for wrongdoing against you, both blatant and perceived. Forgive people for not fulfilling the ideals you've projected onto them. Forgive yourself for letting yourself down. Forgive, forgive, forgive. By all means, don't shy away from standing up for yourself wherever you can work for a just resolution. But after hurts and slights have long since turned into lingering, crippling baggage, let it go. If God can pour salvation onto our broken world, why must we persist in passing sentence? Take a break from the judgement seat and accept your role as an agent of God's healing grace.
__________ *For the idea of going "on a diet from negative thoughts," thanks to the great metaphysical writer Louise L. Hay.