Hello, church,

If you're like me, you generally think more in terms of adding things to your life than subtracting them. When I want to improve myself, for instance, even to focus on something as benign-sounding as "self-care," I often start by making lists of things to do:  

• spend more time exercising
• spend more time in prayer
• spend more time having fun!
• spend more time taking care of my important relationships
• spend more time with positive, genuinely hopeful people
• spend more time in activities that nourish rather than deplete my soul
   

What I tend to overlook here is the obvious question: where am I going to get all this extra time? My calendar is already packed; I have more commitments than I can keep. To what am I going to say "No" in order to be able to say "Yes" to anything more?

This is where the spiritual practice of "fasting"---traditionally associated with Lent---makes sense to me. Fasting isn't an arbitrary means of self-denial. The purpose of fasting is to free us up to be able to focus more fully on our life with God.

If you are not already doing so, I invite you to consider "giving up" something for the remaining weeks of Lent. What might you want to subtract from your life, in order to make way for a more meaningful Easter? You might, for instance, consider such "fasts" as the following:  

• give up watching the news before bedtime, with all the stress it evokes
• give up trying to please everyone
• give up an unreasonable expectation of your own
• give up a habit that is doing you no good, or an expensive excess
• give up an old grudge or a past failure that is holding you back
• give up the need to be perfect, right, or busy all the time
   

This Sunday we will be continuing our Lenten worship series on practices of the spiritual life. I'll be preaching on "Practice Certainty of Purpose." Charisma will be leading us in music, and we will share in Holy Communion.

In this holy season, I am wishing you the gifts of subtraction and simplifying, cleansing and clearing out, making space for grace.

Deep blessings,

Pastor Kathlyn