Lent
We didn't "do" Lent when I was a child. The symbolism of it, from Ash Wednesday through to the Stations of the Cross was a bit, well, Papist. In Mam's Austerity household there wasn't a lot to give up, anyway. We usually spent Lent in England and Easter in Wales, so we missed out on the continuity in a worship community. My first real experience of that was in 1987 when I moved back from America and Mam and Dad were living in Llangattock and belonged to the village Church in Wales.
The first years I spent with John we went to the Norfolk Broads on our boat Penny Star at Easter, and then I got involved in running Eastercons and that was that. For 20 years my Lenten markers were publication dates, hotel booking deadlines, programming workshops. Themes for meditation depended on what current crises were sweeping the fandom world - gender parity, clomping feet of nerdism, bondage, harassment, what to do about the masquerade.
Now I'm free of all that, and would like a Lenten calendar that is as much a part of my year as my Advent one. Advent for me isn't all happy happy joy joy. It is bracketed by Mam's death at the end of November and Dad's during January, for a start. But the calendar includes the kittens' Gotcha Day, our now annual Girlz Trip to Chatsworth for the themed tour, as well as the less secular markers.
The Christian path through Lent is well signposted, there's something nearly every day. Otherwise? Depends a bit on when Easter actually is. There's Six Nations Rugby, of course, and the Easter tours. John's birthday. Mam's snowdrops, which are flowering in a big pot outside my new house front door. Other signs of spring in the new garden - so far there are crocuses in flower, and a lot of thrusting greenery. It won't be nice, but there'll be the anniversary of the Gang's first kill in their new territory. If it's a late Easter, the anniversary of the death of Poppy, our last dog, which was also when I first joined LJ.
I'm sure other things will come in time.
The first years I spent with John we went to the Norfolk Broads on our boat Penny Star at Easter, and then I got involved in running Eastercons and that was that. For 20 years my Lenten markers were publication dates, hotel booking deadlines, programming workshops. Themes for meditation depended on what current crises were sweeping the fandom world - gender parity, clomping feet of nerdism, bondage, harassment, what to do about the masquerade.
Now I'm free of all that, and would like a Lenten calendar that is as much a part of my year as my Advent one. Advent for me isn't all happy happy joy joy. It is bracketed by Mam's death at the end of November and Dad's during January, for a start. But the calendar includes the kittens' Gotcha Day, our now annual Girlz Trip to Chatsworth for the themed tour, as well as the less secular markers.
The Christian path through Lent is well signposted, there's something nearly every day. Otherwise? Depends a bit on when Easter actually is. There's Six Nations Rugby, of course, and the Easter tours. John's birthday. Mam's snowdrops, which are flowering in a big pot outside my new house front door. Other signs of spring in the new garden - so far there are crocuses in flower, and a lot of thrusting greenery. It won't be nice, but there'll be the anniversary of the Gang's first kill in their new territory. If it's a late Easter, the anniversary of the death of Poppy, our last dog, which was also when I first joined LJ.
I'm sure other things will come in time.