Lenten blogging

I saw an article this morning about Lent turning the blogosphere into a decaffeinated, sugar, fat, and pretzel free zone.

You may have noticed, but I've deliberately stayed away from that. And it is not that I have not had a discipline during Lent - I have given something up, as always, and it has made me grumpy enough that the people around me cannot help but know what it is I'm not getting to... (have, do, eat? How's that for coy?)

But at least here I can abstain from boasting about my own piety. Because I really don't have anything to boast about. If relationships are about both giving and receiving, I certainly give far less to God than I get. In fact, there's nothing I can give to God that he does not already have - other than perhaps my praise, since every person is left with the decision as to who or what to worship (or not.)

So why give anything up? Perhaps in part, it is to see if we even can. I must admit to having a great fondness for certain things. I have a couple of guitars that I adore, not because they have great monetary worth, but because they have been with me through many adventures and eras of my life. I remember as a boy having certain toys I was terribly fond of, and I also remember my brother ruining them.

I'd be furious when it happened, I also remember. Last night, my youngest daughter got angry with my oldest, because a cute little fuzz and wire chicken she got at the craft store got ruined. It is just a little thing - not the "earthly treasure" we think of when we hear the saying about not laying up treasures on Earth.

But she was livid - she loved that little chicken. The reality is, however, that any physical thing can, and in the course of time will - be destroyed. That is why, when Lent began, we were told, "Remember, from ashes you came, to ashes you will return."

But there is another side to Solomon's dirge-like missive about ashes and vanities; we may be made from the ashes of what has come before, but if Genesis was right, we are made in God's image. Since I can fairly surmise that by this is not meant that the Father of Heaven is a six foot biped, what does it mean? If we are in God's image, and "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14), what characteristics of God does that include?

I'm not sure we can confidently answer that question, but at least in my faith, that notion includes the idea that some aspect of us is created with the eternal in mind - the body and the world it lives in may be destroyed, but our essence is meant for a return to God. We're made with that wonderful, quirky uniqueness and individuality, the immutable signature we call personality. Are we so unique, perhaps, because one day it will necessary for all to be distinguishable as one?

That is my Easter hope, even if Easter is not yet here.