Fourty Days of Writing

I've never really participated in Lent. Our most recent churches have explored some of the practices of Lent... giving something up for the 40 days before Easter in order to encourage discipline and remove barriers that exist between ourselves and God. I've considered giving something up for the past couple years now, but nothing ever arises as "the thing."

This year, I'm going to take something up that is congruent with my current path and, I believe, will achieve the same goal...to encourage discipline and remove barriers. I've been saying I'm going to do this for a little while now and I've even set aside the first six months of 2010 to prepare to do this so these 40 days will be concerted training time. I'm going to spend 40 minutes for these 40 days writing.

I will work on blog posts, articles for my deadlines at Heart of the Matter, journal entries, character sketches, exercises from The Creative Call, or even flesh out a rough outline for a book idea. I may write talks that I'd like to give one day, or just respond to books or scriptures that I'm reading. I have a book review to do as well.

Through it all I hope that what I'm supposed to say becomes clear and a larger work can begin. I also hope that I gain a truer sense of who I am and how I am part of the greater purposes of God.

"Vocation does not come from a voice "out there" calling me to become something I am not. It comes from a voice "in here" calling me to be the person I was born to be." -- Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak